E-klase says cyberattack did not target user data

Hackers did not try to access or steal user data in an attack that disrupted Latvia’s E-klase electronic school management system, the platform’s management told LSM. The attack instead caused inconvenience by making the service harder to access, and its purpose remains unclear.

E-klase is used as an electronic diary by many Latvian schools and has about half a million users. The attack affected the service for several hours during the day, when it was busiest, although some users were still able to use it.

Platform head Kaģis described the incident as an attack designed to block access to the system. He said similar attacks aimed at disrupting the service had been frequent during the previous school year. Attacks resumed after a pause around the elections, though the company does not know why it is being targeted.

Kaģis said the attackers could be young people trying to develop hacking skills and boast that they had taken E-klase offline. He also said attacks are often stopped before they cause disruption, but defending against them requires the company to spend substantial resources on specialist IT firms.

Staff at Ādaži Secondary School noticed on Tuesday afternoon that they could not log in to E-klase, preventing them from entering new information or viewing data already published.