Wellingborough man arrested over cyber-attack which affected school's lockdown learning

A man from Wellingborough has been arrested in an investigation into a cyber-attack at a school in Market Harborough.

Leicestershire Police received a report of a major IT outage at Welland Park Academy on Monday (January 18) which affected Microsoft Teams, emails and the learning platform, Edulink.

It prevented the school from delivering remote learning and accessing material to support the children of keyworkers and vulnerable children who are attending school.

It was subsequently discovered that a sophisticated cyber-attack had occurred which affected personal devices that connected to the school’s network.

A total of 92 personal devices were affected but there is currently no evidence of any data exfiltration.

Officers from the force’s cyber crime unit are investigating the incident and a 28-year-old man from Wellingborough has been arrested under section 1 and 3 of the Computer Misuse Act.

He has since been released under investigation and enquiries are continuing, a force spokesman said.

The spokesman said: "Officers worked round the clock with the school and Microsoft to remove the threat to personal devices, which was swiftly achieved and work is continuing to restore the school’s IT capability as quickly as possible.

"There is currently no evidence of any data exfiltration.

"Officers would like to thank school staff, parents and pupils for their support and cooperation during this investigation."