Westfield Public Schools Network Outage Linked to Possible Ransomware Attack

Westfield Public Schools in New Jersey experienced a districtwide network outage during the first week of school that disrupted communications and digital instruction while classrooms remained open. The district initially attributed the outage to a networking hardware failure. A ransomware group posted samples related to the incident, suggesting the outage may have been caused by a cyberattack rather than equipment failure as originally stated by the district.