Uh-oh. Florida’s end-of-course exams suspended by hackers.
“Interruptions in Florida’s end-of-course biology, civics and U.S. history exams last week came courtesy of outside hackers, a Florida Department of Education spokeswoman told the Gradebook on Monday.
“It was an attempt by an outside party to somehow shut down the system,” spokeswoman Cheryl Etters said. “Pearson figured out what was going on and put a stop to it.”
“The state told schools to delay testing during the disruption, during which students could not log in to take their exams. The system was back up within about two hours.
“This event marked the second time this spring that Florida’s computerized testing fell victim to a denial of service attack. American Institutes for Research servers also were brought down in March, during the administration of Florida Standards Assessments.”
Last night, I watched a Nova program on PBS called “The Rise of the Hackers.” One of the most sophisticated hacks was the work of teenagers.
The only truly secure test is the one written and graded by the classroom teacher. Online testing is not secure, does not reflect what was taught, and generates profits that are extracted from instruction. They are so yesterday.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think I’ll wait for law enforcement before I accept the state and contractors excuse that it was hackers.
“Hackers” is just a really convenient excuse to cover state or contractor error. I’ll need some disinterested verification.
I’ve also noticed they always immediately deny that any student privacy was breached in the course of these “hacks”. Pearson rode to the rescue again!
Most companies have a head in the sand approach to security. Like education, it is viewed by business as an annoying line item cost rather than investment. Until something goes wrong, then it becomes damage control in crisis mode. It is a good reason why business should not control education. Just look at the decades old technology on our credit cards.
These denial of service attacks are not the most sophisticated. They involve sending data to a computer in massive quantities until the computer cannot handle the load. They are not always preventable at the source, but can be defended against effectively if the company invests in the safeguards and staff. It all goes back to short sightedness and unwillingness to invest in infrastructure and the long term.
My health insurer had a huge data breach and the only reason they revealed it is because there’s a strong federal law protecting patient privacy. They’re all afraid of it. That’s why it works.
This idea that they’re all going to adopt “best practices” voluntarily because it’s “for the children” is just nonsense. No, they’re not.
A good reason why companies need adult supervision. They will not offer true consumer protections unless all have to by government action.
Amen, Chiara!
The testing problems in VA were also blamed on the cyberattack in Florida:
“Pearson said the company was the target of a cyberattack on May 13 that caused problems with the testing system. ”
It could be true, but I don’t think states should just accept whatever the contractor tells them. Obviously school systems don’t have the technical capability in-house to verify what the contractor says, so we’re all just pretty much taking Pearson’s word on it.
ww.washingtonpost.com/local/education/va-testing-interrupted-three-times-because-of-issues-with-pearson-system/2015/05/20/3243a030-ff38-11e4-8b6c-0dcce21e223d_story.html?wprss=rss_education
The worst (or is it best?) hacking (intentional or not) of the Pearson tests is done by the folks writing the questions
I believe the term for this is “DNI” — Denial of Intelligence
This is why our nuclear missiles are on a closed system from the 1960s. We have been unable to stop the hackers.
But nuns can still get through, of course.
And this is a company promoting smart, balanced, assessment test. Kind of technology progress! Pearson test is like a 40-year-old nuclear reactor dealt to electric company in foreign country without an approval of the US Congress.
“Etters said Pearson has taken steps to prevent future infiltrations of its systems. She stressed that the test was not breached, and that no student data was compromised, during these attacks.”
Well, she would, wouldn’t she.
credit: Mandy Rice Davies in the 70’s film “Scandal”.
As has been stated many times.
Did these kinds of problems exist when teachers made up their own tests and graded them immediately with knowledge of their students achievements or lack thereof at no additional cost to taxpayers.
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”.
The U.S. is home to members of some of the world’s most notorious hacker groups, including Anonymous and AntiSec.
Maybe we could ask them to go after Pearson.
http://www.bloomberg.com/slideshow/2013-04-23/top-ten-hacking-countries.html#slide10
Pearson needs to GO AWAY. In fact, all who think these DEFORMS are good are making HUGE $$$$$ or are being duped.