US George Washington University, Washington DC law students have been unable to access classroom materials after the “MyLaw” platform suffered a cyber-attack last Fri., possibly exposing students & faculty’s personal information.
Officials explained that potentially compromised information included GWIDs, course schedules, academic & degree programs, faculty office locations & office phone numbers. Some students’ take-home final exams may have also been lost; a law school administrator stated in an email Mon. evening.
AppointLink
It remains unclear when MyLaw, which provides law students with online access to classroom notes & past assignments, will come back online. AppointLink, an education software developer that owns the platform, did not immediately comment.
“GW takes very seriously any situation that could compromise our community members’ data,” administrators said in an email to law students Mon. evening.
“This incident is being thoroughly investigated by the vendor GWIT Information Security, who took immediate & appropriate actions to reinforce existing security measures & to mitigate potential impact.”
Degree Information
Social security numbers, home addresses & dates of birth were not stored on the portal, officials stated. Law school alumni’s graduation year and degree information may have also been exposed.
Officials also warned students to “protect” themselves against fraudulent calls & phishing frauds by ignoring & deleting any suspicious communications asking for personal information.
Appropriate Actions
“We want to assure you that we are continuing to take all appropriate actions to remediate the situation,” officials outlined in the email. “We recognise the seriousness of this issue & will continue to update you with any additional information about this incident as it becomes available.”
University spokesperson Crystal Nosal did not immediately return a request for comment.
In a separate email to law students, Michael Abramowicz, the school’s Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, stated take-home final exams that were submitted on MyLaw between Dec. 9 after 2:31am & Dec.10 before 3:15am have likely been lost.
Unaccounted For
“We know of 7 students whose take-home exams are unaccounted for, and we are sending those students a message simultaneous to this one,” Abramowicz revealed in the email. “But it is possible that others may also have submitted exams during this period.”
He urged students who believe they submitted their exams during that 25-hour time period should send a copy to the Records Office as soon as possible.
Additional Files
“AppointLink is continuing to search log files to see if additional files may be recovered, but we are not sure that will be successful,” he stated.
Law School Dean Dayna Bowen Matthew mentioned that AppointLink told officials the portal had been “compromised” early Fri. morning.
“This is of utmost importance to us, & we know to you, 1st & foremost, to our students who are in exam period,” Matthew emphasized in a video statement released Mon. morning. “We can’t imagine a more stressful time for this to have happened.”
Final Exams
She said most final exams, the majority of which are administered through a separate software, are continuing as scheduled this week.
“Some of the materials that were on the MyLaw platform that were compromised are being recovered,” she explained. “And as they’re being recovered, we’re coordinating both student expectations & requests, as well as the availability of those materials.”
Google Drive Folder
In response to the outage, the US Student Bar Association created a crowdsourced Google Drive folder where students & faculty can upload missing documents & study materials until MyLaw services return online.
Matthew thanked the US Student Bar Association for creating the shared folder & revealed that law school faculty were continuing to share documents through it over the weekend.
“I want to say a huge thank you to the SBA who created a Google Doc shared location & poured into that all of the student contributions for sharing materials, all of the faculty contributions over the course of the weekend,” said Matthew.
Re-Upload
SBA President Jordan Michel had asked law school faculty & administrators on Fri. night to re-upload class materials to the folder.
“We understand how stressful this situation is at an already stressful time,” Michel outlined in the email.
“The SBA is in regular communication with the administration & has been advocating for alternatives to help students during this outage.”
Abysmal
SBA leaders also called for officials to extend exam deadlines & improve the current portal software in a separate letter to law school deans. The letter called GW’s response to the situation “abysmal” & “disappointing.”
“The students of this institution have prepared tirelessly for exams during this exhausting semester only to be met with dismissive placations & unpreparedness from the administration,” SBA senators suggested. “The absolute tip of the iceberg is the MyLaw outage with no current end in sight.”
