santa fe when the superintendent of albuquerque public schools announced earlier this week a cyber attack would lead to the cancellation of classes for around 75000 students he noted that the districts technology department had been fending off attacks for the last few weeks albuquerque is not alone as five school districts in the state have suffered major cyber attacks in the past two years including one district thats still wrestling with a cyber attack that hit just after christmas but its the first reporting a cyber attack that required cancellation of classes all the more disruptive as schools try to keep inperson learning going during the pandemic if it seems ive come into your homes a lot in the past couple of years to share difficult news youre right and here i am again superintendent scott elder said in a video address thursday we find ourselves facing yet another challenge the closures on thursday and friday affect approximately one in five new mexico schoolchildren in what is the countrys 35th largest school district by enrollment according to 2019 data from the national center for education statistics the district was one of the last in the state to reopen last year as vaccines became available the small town of truth or consequences discovered a cyber attack on dec 28 and still hasnt gained control of its computer systems were not out of the woods yet said mark torres the information technology director of the school system in truth or consequences a small town in central new mexico the attack has not been previously reported it came when students were on vacation allowing time to make contingency plans before students returned torres says that while the attack made computer systems unavailable disruption has been minimal that wasnt the case in albuquerque where teachers discovered wednesday morning that they were locked out of the student information database that tracks attendance records emergency contacts for students and tracks which adults are allowed to pick up which students at the end of the school day in 2019 las cruces public schools also suffered an attack on their student information database after a phishing attack lured one or more employees to click a malicious link in an email months before recalls matt dawkins that districts information technology director after lurking and scoping out the districts system a hacker or hackers carried out ransomware attack data on many school computers starting with the student database was locked up in an encryption a ransom was demanded in exchange for the key its kind of like when your house gets robbed you know that feeling of being violated said dawkins in an interview thursday as his school went under lockdown due to an unrelated police call a mile away the school didnt pay the ransom and eventually found a way to reset its data systems to the state they were in the day before the attack but it required months of hands on work and extra expenses for