UPDATE: Penn-Harris-Madison says school week will go on as scheduled
UPDATE: At 4:30 p.m., PHM School District sent parents an update on the ransomware situation.
"Just to reiterate, PHM's student database does NOT digitally collect nor retain any records of students' social security numbers," a spokesperson for the district said. "Again, we are in the very early stages of this assessing how widespread and what exactly was accessed."
Dear P-H-M Families:
We thank you for your continued patience as our IT Department is working diligently with our cyber security forensic partners to determine the extent of this morning's ransomware attack.
Today was a normal school day with some challenges, but our teachers, students and staff were flexible and made adjustments. We did experience WiFi and internet interruptions as P-H-M Technology worked to isolate the threat. Access to the internet will continue to be limited to ensure containment.
Google and Clever are unaffected. Canvas was impacted, but those issues should be resolved by tomorrow (Tuesday, March 4, 2025).
At this time, we believe that this week's assessments will not be impacted, including: elementary students taking IREAD, Freshman taking the PSAT, and Juniors taking the SAT.
We appreciate your cooperation and understanding as we work to keep the impact of the ransomware attack to a minimum.
ORIGINAL: ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. -- Officials with Penn-Harris-Madison School Corp. sent an email out to parents Monday morning stating the P-H-M Director of Technology informed them of a network breach from an external source involving ransomware.
District officials say as a precaution, all network-connected desktop computers have been shut down.
Student and staff Chromebooks, laptops, cell phones, tablets, Wi-Fi devices, and internet/cloud-based applications remain safe to use, according to district officials.
District officials say the P-H-M Technology team, in consultation with cyber security experts, is investigating and will provide updates when available.