Remote Learning for Sandwich Students Affected by Cyber Attack

SANDWICH – Remote learning for students in the Sandwich Public Schools District has been impacted by a cyber attack, according to Superintendent Pamela Gould.

In a message sent to families this week, Gould said that the problems, which were identified as a firewall failure, began on October 8.

The district is working with engineers to identify any underlying issues with the system.

The school district’s technology team installed a new firewall last weekend but it crashed on Sunday afternoon.

The team spent Sunday and Monday working to get a new firewall in place but service began dropping again on Tuesday morning.

“The newly installed firewall identified this issue as a DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack,” Gould wrote in her message to parents.

A DDoS attack is defined as a “malicious attempt to disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted server, service or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of internet traffic.”

Sandwich is not the only school district dealing with the attacks.

According to Gould, Tyngsboro Public Schools have also been attacked and appears to point to a physical device being carried into on the district’s buildings each morning.

“This is not a capacity issue for the district,” said Gould.

“This is something that is happening TO us.”

Sandwich Public Schools is working with the Sandwich Police Department to figure out next steps.

The district is expected to be in communication with families again this week to determine how remote learning will proceed.

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