BEAUMONT, Texas — Phone system issues recently affecting the Beaumont Independent School District are being blamed on a national outage with the district's phone service.
The district's phone service was affected by a national outage due to a cyber attack on the district's phone service vendor according to BISD spokesperson Jackie Simien.
"They are all going after some of the soft targets that go after businesses and school districts and hospitals and that came in just within the past few weeks from a FBI warning," said IT Expert Ira Wilker.
"The main line and the nurses office, we are still importing phones as we speak right now. Which is a time consuming process, we are doing high schools today, and middle schools tomorrow followed by elementary schools," said Interim Director of IT Ryan Deloney.
The issues with the district's phone service began on Jan. 23, 2024 and within days the vendor determined it was the victim of a cyber attack.
"To be able to call in when there is an emergency, if they need to go get their kids. Or if there is a at home emergency. It's vital for parents to have access to our numbers as advertised," said Deloney.
When the district could not get a confirmed date that service would be restored they chose to switch phone service providers Simien told 12News on Thursday.
Most of the district, including all critical offices, have been set up with the new phone system though some parts of the district are still having the new phones installed.
Deloney says no sensitive student information was obtained in the breach.
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This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.