School district pays $10,000 bitcoin ransom after cyberattack

LEOMINSTER, Mass. — A Massachusetts school district was waiting Friday for its computer system to be “unlocked” after it paid a $10,000 bitcoin ransom to hackers following a cyberattack on its system. And despite the nefarious nature of the school system’s lockdown, there is no criminal investigation into the matter because solving this crime is “impossible,” said Interim Leominster Police Chief Michael Goldman.

“It’s something that very, very likely came from out of the country, and trying to trace something like this down is impossible,” Goldman told CBS Boston.

The police chief said he wasn’t told what types of school district files were locked down. He said this was “straight up decryption” and that no data was mined. The school e-mail system was down, and school employees were using their Gmail accounts as backup to communicate with each another, he said.

Leominster Schools Superintendent Paula Deacon said in a statement that the bitcoin ransom was paid following…