Key parts of the U.S. Department of Education’s website were inaccessible for five days last month after federal officials detected “suspicious activity” and took many pages down to “protect the integrity” of the site.
That left everyone from education policy experts to parents to state officials without information on things such as No Child Left Behind Act waivers, policy-guidance letters, and Investing in Innovation applications, starting on March 29. Service was fully restored April 3.
In a statement, Education Department officials said they had no reason to believe any protected information was compromised.
Nonetheless, the technology experts at the department “pulled the impacted system offline to protect the integrity of the site,” spokesman Daren Briscoe said in a statement.
