Groton, CONN. – Groton Public Schools faced a cyberattack Feb. 1 that resulted in a day-long internet blackout as multiple recovery efforts throughout the school-day failed to bring services back online completely.
Teachers and students entered schools across the district yesterday morning with the expectation of internet access as means to complete assignments and teach. However, this idea would need to be changed as students entered first period to find a “No internet” message on their Chromebook laptops. Teachers faced further problems as printers in teachers’ suite’s were left unavailable without an internet connection. Throughout the course of the day, it was eventually revealed that a cyberattack was responsible for the mass outage.
An initial SMS message was sent out to staff, students, and families at 9:24 a.m. reading, “Groton Public Schools is experiencing an internet outage. Updates will be provided as soon as they become available.” The impact was widespread across Groton’s seven public schools, through which there are more than 4,000 students in attendance.
“Groton Public Schools was a victim of a cyberattack on our main servers,” the district revealed on the evening of Feb. 1 in an automated call. Furthermore, the district stated that the origin of the attack has been identified, and the investigation is underway, including local law enforcement participation. As of end of day on Thursday, Feb. 1, about 90% of systems had been restored.
In a ParentSquare email sent to the district at 5:20 p.m., Dr. Clint Kennedy, Director of Technology, wrote, “We will continue to work through our disaster recovery process in conjunction with local police to investigate the situation.”
Throughout the day, teachers were subsequently required to find other means to continue teaching and learning. Some teachers used their own phone’s “Hotspot” feature to substitute the GPS Administrator Wi-Fi connection. A mid-day announcement by Mr. Brown noted that students were evidently able to use their Chromebooks while teachers experienced ongoing issues. Still, many students struggled with connectivity as the day progressed.
This comes as Fitch High School is still recovering from a rainstorm that left some classrooms flooded and even more ceilings dripping this past January.
