Dear Hudson CSD Families,
As you are aware, our District continues to experience repeated internet outages that are causing disruptions to our school operations, particularly remote learning. We know this is very frustrating for our students and families and we share these frustrations with you.
We have a dedicated and skilled Instructional Technology Department that has been working diligently to solve the issues we are experiencing. While some internet outages were weather-related, there is evidence that the majority of the outages are being caused by targeted cyberattacks originating from off-campus. The type of cyberattack we are experiencing is intended to temporarily disable our District’s internet service by flooding it with artificial traffic (also known as distributed denial of service, or DDoS). It is not capable of accessing any records and there is no threat to data security. It recently came to our attention that multiple districts/organizations within Columbia County have been impacted similarly. Due to the disruptive nature of these attacks, we have involved law enforcement in the investigation.We are cooperating with each other and law enforcement to bring this matter to closure. While this investigation is underway, we will continue to work on both short-term and long-term solutions to minimize disruptions to our internet service.
We again apologize for the inconvenience and frustration this ongoing situation causes. Please know we have a strong infrastructure to support our daily technology needs and we are doing what we can to overcome the problem, but it may take some time. If there comes a time that we need to work remotely, we will notify you as soon as possible and provide our students with the devices required to be successful.
Sincerely,
Dr. Maria Lagana Suttmeier, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools