14 DAY TRIAL // At the end of March, just as many students in Kansas were preparing to take tests on the online student testing system known as the Kansas Interactive Testing Engine (KITE), a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack was launched against the servers powering the platform.
According to The Kansas City Star, the first attack was recorded on March 27. A few days later, after everything was restored to normal, a new attack was launched. Students who were taking the tests at the time got error messages or blank screens.
It’s uncertain who is behind the attacks. It wouldn’t be surprising if some students who were supposed to take the test were responsible. However, officials refuse to speculate too much.
“We don’t know if it was two bored teenagers or an anti-testing attack. We have no information,” said Marianne Perie, co-director of the Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation at the University of Kansas, cited by the Kansas City Star.
The state’s representatives have clarified that no student information has been accessed. New systems have been set in place to protect the platform against such cyberattacks.
Kansas students back to testing. #KITE recovered from DDoS. Feedback from districts: Students are engaged! KS schools are resilient! #ksed
— Marianne Perie (@DrMarianneP) April 3, 2014
On Thursday, Perie announced on Twitter that all systems were back up and running.