SOUTH LYON, Mich. (WXYZ) — Students in South Lyon Community Schools will return to their classrooms on Thursday after a three-day closure following what officials described as a network interruption that caused security concerns.
Watch Tiarra Braddock's video report:
Classes were canceled Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday as a precautionary measure.
"We were honestly in disbelief, I guess, because you don't really know what that means when you have a cyberattack," said Nicole Bringedahl, a parent of two children ages 6 and 8 in the district.
Parents received a letter Sunday informing them of the network outage.
During a Tuesday board meeting, Superintendent Steven Archibald explained the extent of the disruption.
"We have, currently, the inability to call in or call out of our building, which includes our E-911 notifications," Archibald said at the meeting.
The loss of phone service and surveillance capabilities prompted district officials to close schools as a safety precaution.
Watch our previous coverage about the closure below:
"I take it that the schools make the best call for all of the students, and I know that safety is obviously the number one reason why they were not allowed to go in school," Bringedahl said.
Archibald assured families that there is no evidence student or faculty data was accessed during the incident.
"Mr. Archibald has been taking very good cautious measures of everything and I think with the measures that he's taking, all of our children's information has been protected," said Jennifer Kremer, whose child is in kindergarten in the district.
Scott Bailey, a cybersecurity expert with N1 Discovery, a metro Detroit-based cybersecurity firm, said the incident was likely a random attack rather than a targeted one.
"In today's hacking world, they don't care. They don't care who you are. Very, very, it's very unlikely that this was a target, meaning they specifically had a reason to go after South Lyon. Most likely, it was there was a security vulnerability," Bailey said.
The district continues to investigate what caused the network disruption. Parents expressed relief that safety remained the top priority throughout the incident.
"At the end of the day, safety is the most important thing," Bringedahl said.
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