TNReady Testing Halted, Hack Suspected

NASHVILLE, TN -- A suspected hack of the company administering the online portion of Tennessee's standardized test has halted TNReady at districts across the Volunteer State.

The potential "deliberate attack" on Questar comes on the second day of spring testing, which includes an online element for middle- and high-school students; elementary school students take the test with pencil and paper. Questar is resetting its servers, state education officials said, and working with law enforcement.

State education commissioner Candace McQueen sent an e-mail Tuesday morning:

It appears Questar’s data center may have experienced a deliberate attack this morning based on the way traffic is presenting itself. They are currently resetting the system. However, the attacker may take these same steps again, and Questar is actively working on further reinforcements, including notifying authorities.
To our knowledge, no student data has been compromised.
If you are testing, please continue. When a student is finished, please pause the test and note which student has used which machine, as students’ tests are stored on that specific device. Again, the software is designed to save students’ work, so if their testing session is disrupted, they can resume and submit their answers later. We will notify you when the system is back up, and the students can return to that device and submit.
New students will likely not be able to log-in this morning, but we anticipate they will be able to do so this afternoon. We will be in touch as soon as possible with an update.

Despite these assurances, Williamson County opted to cancel testing on Tuesday:

High-school students statewide struggled to log-in to the system on the first day of testing Monday, but Questar resolved that issue relatively quickly.

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