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Prosecutor orders investigation following collapse of school exam platform

exams
30 Μαΐου 2023 / 22:57

CORFU. Ionian Islands Regional Education Director: "Problems in Corfu have been restored. We are ready for the national exams as the transmission system of the exam questions is different".

The problems observed early in the morning in Corfu schools following the new cyberattack on the exam platform that provides teachers with topics for school exams, were restored around 09:30. The system crashed for the second consecutive time during the high school exams taking place in the country's schools. The incident even caused the Supreme Court prosecutor Isidoros Dogiakos to intervene and order an investigation.
 
As the Ionian Islands Regional Director of Education Petros Aggelopoulos told Enimerosi, high school exams are being held as normal in all schools of our Region except for two in Cephalonia.
 
In Corfu, problems were observed around 06:00, when school teachers tried to access the platform, but it had crashed and did not allow them to proceed to the draw of the exams' topics. Teachers immediately reported the new problems and three hours later the exams were finally able to be held after a gradual restoration.
 
"Right now in Corfu the platform has been completely restored. The problems today were less than yesterday. Where there was a delay, there was also inconvenience primarily to the pupils as it created pressure and stress. This is a malicious attack to the platform," said Mr. Aggelopoulos.
 
 
Ready for the national exams
 
The school exams were completed today for the 3rd grade high school pupils, as well as the grading of their papers, in view of the national university entrance exams that begin on Friday 2 June. Vocational high school pupils will be examined one day earlier.
 
However, as Mr. Aggelopoulos explained, candidates will not have to worry about similar problems at the national exams, as the transmission of the exam questions is done in a completely different way, which ensures that there will be no issues.
 
"We are ready for the national exams. We would like to wish good luck to the pupils who will take part," he said, while thanking the teachers who are also fighting. The school exams for 1st and 2nd grade high school pupils will last until June 15.
 
 
Investigation
 
As ERT reported, the Supreme Court prosecutor Isidoros Dogiakos, has already ordered the head of the Athens First-Instance Court Prosecutors’ Office Antonis Eleftherianos to carry out an in-depth investigation with the assistance of the Hellenic Police's Cyber Crime Unit.
 
According to the order, in order to identify the perpetrators, the responsible authorities may even proceed to the seizure of findings and other evidence that may lead to the identification of the perpetrators.
 
 
Malicious attack
 
The General Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Alexandros Koptsis, speaking this morning on a TV programme about the cyberattack, said that this was an attack against education, noting that the problem that has arisen concerns the final exams that are being held in high schools these days and not the national exams. As he said, the platform was subjected to a malicious attack, but there was an immediate response.
 
"We responded immediately, quickly and consistently to our pupils. The system was not breached. There was simply a great accessibility flow effort. There were 280,000 fake users per second. We solved it with an excellent cooperation between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Digital Policy. We managed this problem immediately," he said.