After sending out an all staff email last Thursday, the Greater Essex County District School Board wants to clarify it was not the victim of a cyber attack.
Instead, a device infected with malware connected with the board's guest network. Then, the malware attempted to overload the network.
"This was the 401 at 5pm near Pearson Airport," says Superintendent of Education, John Howitt. "You may have heard the term BotNet before. It's a device with malware in the background where the botnet is trying to use that computer and other computers to flood with traffic."
Fortunately, no sensitive information was compromised, because the board keeps its guest network separate from its administrative network, and the one it uses for curriculum.
There are thousands of devices that connect to the guest network each day, and Howitt says the traffic attack shouldn't be confused with a hack either.
"It is not a malicious, trying to get at files kind of attack," he explains saying it is very likely the owner of the infected device had no idea the botnet was at work. "We'll be able to narrow it down to a degree, and the I.T. team is in the process of that."
Howitt says the system's firewall also blocked the attack, so the only impact for teachers and students last Thursday was a slowdown in Internet service.
