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FDLE investigating cyber-attacks on standardized tests

March 9, 2015
/ Staff Reports
/ government

Florida’s top law enforcement agency is investigating cyber-attacks that caused several school districts — including Escambia County’s — to suspend standardized tests. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Department of Education announced the investigation Monday. School districts last week reported problems with test, causing many of them to postpone the computer-based Florida Standards Assessment until the bugs could be ironed out. FDLE Commissioner Rick Swearingen said the law department is investigating testing delays caused by cyber-attacks on a server used to administer the FSA. Education Commissioner Pam Stewart said most students in Florida still are testing with no problems, but officials are aware that some of the delays last week were caused by cyber-attacks on the testing system operated by American Institutes for Research. “The department has been working with FDLE since last Thursday when we were notified about the problem and we will continue to provide them with any information possible to ensure they identify the bad actors and hold them accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” Stewart said. She said her office is holding daily conference calls with AIR to ensure that the testing organization address any flaws or attacks on the system as the state moves forward in this week of testing. “Our highest priority is to make sure students can complete their tests and we will continue to work with AIR to ensure their system operates effectively,” she said. “It is important to point out that AIR has reported that while access to the test has been delayed because of the cyber-attacks, no student data has been compromised.” AIR is also working to capture any student writing responses that were reported lost and the company believes the measures now in place will prevent any future attacks from impacting testing, Stewart said. Swearingen said FDLE’s Tallahassee Cyber-Crimes Squad began working with the Department of Education on Thursday to determine where these attacks came from and to identify suspects. “This investigation is to be a priority for our Cyber-Crime Squad and we consulted with our counterparts at the FBI,” Swearingen said. “If suspects are identified, we will work with prosecutors to ensure the perpetrators are held accountable.” On March 2, Florida’s eighth-, ninth- and 10^th-grade students began taking the computer-based writing component of the English language arts FSA. At the start of the two-week testing window, Escambia County was among some other districts that experienced a number of technical difficulties unrelated to the cyber attack. It included delays when test administrators could not log in, and students being logged out of the test prior to completion. The problems resulted in some responses being temporarily unavailable to the students. Stewart directed AIR, the organization delivering the tests, to determine the cause of the issue and immediately resolve it. AIR accepted full responsibility and concluded that an update it performed had inadvertently resulted in the delays. AIR has had success retrieving student responses and it is researching and resolving the remaining cases. By Tuesday afternoon, the issue with the log on server was resolved. While there were some sporadic reports of denial of service on Monday and Tuesday, significant concerns of an attack did not occur until Thursday morning when DOE received widespread reports from a number of districts of “white screens” after logging in. By about 8:30 a.m.Thursday, the problem had subsided and the districts that continued were able to test successfully for the rest of the day. AIR confirmed the cause of this issue was a cyber-attack on the log on server. Stewart, upon learning about the cyber-attack, immediately contacted FDLE and requested the agency to investigate this issue and hold those responsible accountable. According to AIR, the cyber-attack that caused a denial of service will not compromise student performance on the test or any personal student data. Despite these issues, in the first week of the two-week testing window, a total of 397,352 students completed the computer-based writing component, which represents more than 60 percent of students registered to take the test.

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FDLE investigating cyber-attacks on standardized tests

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