Iris Hernandez, Easterly Yeaman
The ESD network experienced a cyber-attack on March 17 while students were on spring break. Parents, faculty and staff were notified via email by Head of School David Baad as the ESD tech department worked to keep the network secure.
“The technology department began working immediately to recover our systems and get our network back online,” Director of Technology Bryan Barnett ’00 said. “We are grateful that we have worked over the last several years to be prepared for an incident like this.”
In order to further protect student and employee privacy, everyone had to change their password by March 27, and the tech department changed the Wi-Fi access. This was in an effort to block anyone from accessing sensitive campus information.
“As part of the ongoing forensic investigation, our IT team is trying to determine how this attack may have occurred,” Baad said. “Over the past few months, they have worked diligently to put protocols in place to guard against these types of attacks, and we continue to consider alternative procedures that could even further strengthen our cyber protections.”
The attack is one of many recent security breaches in schools, businesses, health care organizations and corporations across the country.
Senior Maxim Jovanovic, a computer science student, said ESD handled the situation well.
“From what I understand, other schools have been breached in a similar manner, losing potentially sensitive information in a way that could have been prevented,” Jovanovic said. “I feel that ESD handled it with urgency and made all the right calls.”