On Aug. 27, OH staff and students faced an unexpected challenge: school printers were mysteriously and immediately not working, leaving staff and students to scramble with alternative assignments.
OH went without printers for several days, only coming back online Sept. 1, causing concern and possible setbacks for staff. “Not knowing how long we would be without this luxury,” was a major concern according to OH Career and Technical Education teacher Nancy Wyatt.
Both color and black-and-white printers, which students and staff rely on everyday, are still in high demand even though OH is a 1:1 technology school.
“I had a diagram for Child Development that really needed to be completed by hand,” Wyatt explained about who the lack of printer access altered her teaching. “I… just pushed off the diagram until the printers were back up and running,” Wyatt said about her adjustments to the lesson.
Staff ran to alternatives as this issue began: electronics picked up where the paper left off.
“I made the assignments/notes digital and [students] had access to them in their Google Classroom,” Wyatt added. “The few items I needed for Tuesday, I sent the PDF file to a friend and they made a few copies for me at their work,” Wyatt continued, indicating that printers outside of SD#308 were used to make the needed materials.
While staff patiently waited, maintenance was actively cleaning the system. As the SD#308 Tech Department consistently updated staff through email, OH LRC Director Andrew Mundsinger finally explained the cause and resolution behind the printers letting everyone know the problem has come to an end.
According to information shared with staff from SD#308 Tech Department Director Brent Kiger, “Early morning of Monday, August 31, OH cybersecurity defense platform (CrowdStrike Falcon Complete) detected and successfully blocked an unauthorized attempt to exploit a newly identified vulnerability within their PaperCut printing server.” This information, shared with 42Fifty from Mundsinger, explained why the printers went down initially.
“In accordance with our security protocols,” Kiger’s email continued, “the IT department immediately network- contained (isolated) the affected server to ensure the threat could not spread. This quarantine was highly effective, and no other servers or workstations within the school district were affected.”
In-building, Mundsinger shared that the email also reassured staff about possible issues with printer-related work.
“We want to reassure all staff that there is no indication that any files, images, or personal information belonging to students or staff members were accessed or compromised during this brief incident,” the statement said. “The threat was successfully neutralized at its point of entry.”
SD#308 is fighting hard to prevent future occurrences like this happening again.
Mundsinger said the email statement included restoration protocol for users.
“As a precautionary measure, we restored the printing server from a clean, secure backup dated August 27th—well before any suspicious activity occurred,” the statement read. “To further shield our networks from external threats, we are implementing an essential safety adjustment. Moving forward, we disabled the ability to submit copy center print jobs from outside of our district network.”
Although the printers were restored to function after the cyberattack, teachers and students felt the pinch, reverting to other forms of technology while the paper production paused.
“We are lucky to be 1:1 with the computers,” Wyatt said. “It does make situations like that easier to navigate.”
Hi, my name is Peyton. I'm a junior in highschool and it's my first year on staff. You can contact me by emailing 42Fifty@sd308.org and putting my name in the subject line. We welcome comments on our articles and feedback on our publication.
