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Cyber Attack on Carroll County Schools System

Don Rush

WESTMINSTER, Md. (AP) - Carroll County public school officials are revealing a cyberattack that shut down Internet access for one day last week.

The Carroll County Times reported in its Wednesday edition that security and data were not breached during the Feb. 25 attack.

Chief Information Officer Gary Davis says the attack flooded the system with bogus external communications requests. The large number of requests overwhelmed the system's ability to respond to legitimate traffic.

Davis says the school system may have been randomly selected for the attack.

Assistant Superintendent Steve Johnson says the attack caused disruptions for teachers who had planned to use the Internet for instruction that day. He says it also made it impossible for students to do research or independent projects online.

Don Rush is the News Director and Senior Producer of News and Public Affairs at Delmarva Public Media. An award-winning journalist, Don reports major local issues of the day, from sea level rise, to urban development, to the changing demographics of Delmarva.