TIFTON — Even when school was out for spring break, a handful of Tift County Schools staff went above and beyond to keep a close eye on and protect the school’s digital network.

The Board of Education made sure to recognize this work done by Larry Howard and Jenny Varnadoe during their May 8 meeting, presenting them both with a Beyond the T Award as thanks for safeguarding the school system from a potential cyberattack over the weeklong break.

Dana Spurlin, Tift County Schools chief information officer, reported that during the break, Varnadoe, a bookkeeper in the School Nutrition department, had identified what she believed to be a possible cyberattack and had reported as such to Howard, a network engineer for the school system. He then took immediate action to secure the system, preventing any information from being accessed by the cyberattacker.

School superintendent Natalie Gore acknowledged how devastating a cyberattack could have been, estimating that it could have taken months for the school system to recover from such a data breach, and thanked the pair for catching the attack before any damage could be done.