Evanston Township High School will reopen Wednesday after a ransomware attack Sunday shut down the school for two days.
In an online announcement, the school said summer school, sports camps and all other on-campus activities will resume Wednesday.
“These systems have now been restored to a level that allows us to safely reopen campus,” the school said, adding that it has “tested emergency systems, including systems used in the event of fire or other emergencies, and additional safety measures will remain in place for the foreseeable future.”
Phone systems remain unavailable and the investigation and recovery efforts continue. The school did not disclose whether any demand was made or satisfied. Ransomware is a type of malicious software that blocks access to a computer system or data and demands a ransom for its release.
In its announcement first disclosing the attack on Sunday, the school said once it discovered the attack it activated its incident response procedures and contacted outside cybersecurity attorneys and forensic experts to investigate. The school also said it is cooperating with the FBI during the investigation. The FBI declined to confirm or deny it was investigating.
Other cyberattacks
The attack is the second cyberattack on an Evanston school in the last month. Northwestern University’s learning management system Canvas was hacked May 8 as part of a worldwide ransomware attack that impacted several universities. Canvas is used by students to submit homework, receive feedback, and access course content.
The attack on Northwestern’s Canvas program was resolved when the school’s software vendor, Instructure, paid the ransom with a promise to delete exfiltrated records, according to the education blog FOIA Gras. The Daily Northwestern reported that the cybercrime group ShinyHunters claimed responsibility and said its May attack affected more than 9,000 institutions.
It is unknown whether the recent ransomware attack against ETHS is related to the May attacks by ShinyHunters.
The attack was not the first time ETHS was targeted by cybercriminals. In 2020, the school was defrauded of $48,570 after a data breach, according to published reports.
Separately, Evanston/Skokie School District 65 was hit by a data breach in 2025 that impacted 18,000 school districts nationwide and compromised student records.
ETHS said any additional updates will be posted online at https://www.eths202.org/about/cybersecurity-incident.
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