Ransomware attack shutters 157-year-old Lincoln College

A college that kept going through two world wars, the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic and the Great Depression is shutting down on Friday, unable to stay afloat due to the lingering effects of the coronavirus crisis and a recent ransomware attack. 

Lincoln College — a historically Black college in rural central Illinois that broke ground on President Abraham Lincoln's birthday in 1865 — tried but failed to raise enough money to recover from the combined impact of COVID-19 and a December cyberattack, David Gerlach, the college's president, said in a statement.

"The loss of history, careers and a community of students and alumni is immense," he said.