u/Organic-Bus-1452

I have recently become the owner of an iPad 7th gen. It was in the lost and found and went unclaimed for 6 months, so our policy allowed me to claim it. I performed a factory reset, but I am now getting the "iPad Locked to Owner" message.

I have tried to manually change the DNS configuration to bypass this message, but I am still unable to unlock it. Many YouTube videos recommend downloading software to unlock iCloud bypass, but I don't trust it. Any suggestions on how to get past the Activation Lock?