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BigBlueButton website: The software is used for online video conferencing
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BigBlueButton
Online lessons in the corona crisis are a challenge for many teachers and students: This is not only due to the usual communication hurdles of video conferences, lame internet lines and outdated hardware, but sometimes also to targeted attacks on the portals used.
In the past few weeks, numerous disruptive actions have been registered across Germany, read more here.
In Rhineland-Palatinate, there were several problems with digital lessons in January: On the first day of school of the new year, the online platform moodle @ RLP could not be accessed for several hours or only to a limited extent.
Even then, a DDoS attack, i.e. an overload attack, was identified as the cause of the disruptions.
In such attacks, servers are flooded with an artificially generated mass of calls until they collapse under the load.
It shouldn't be the last outside interference that angry teachers and students alike.
As the public prosecutor's office in Koblenz announced on Wednesday, it has now at least found the person responsible for a DDoS attack on the BigBlueButton web conference system that lasted around two days.
After a search, a 14-year-old youth from the Bernkastel-Wittlich district admitted the act, according to a press release.
The attack therefore affected the period from January 19 to January 21.
DDoS attacks are usually not particularly technically complex and can even be reinforced via criminal portals on the Internet and with the help of appropriate programs.
How exactly the 14-year-old carried out his attack is not known.
Platforms can protect themselves from being flooded by overload attacks by taking technical precautions.
Hundreds of schools were potentially affected
Due to the overload attack, the registration for BigBlueButton "and thus also the online lessons at schools in Rhineland-Palatinate" was significantly disrupted, said the General Prosecutor's Office, who tracked the suspect together with the Cybercrime Department of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Criminal Police Office was.
It is said that further attacks on moodle @ RLP and BigBlueButton from January are being investigated.
According to the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of Education, moodle @ RLP is used in around 900 schools in the state.
Over Christmas the server capacities for the software have been increased many times over.
The video conference program BigBlueButton helps with virtual teaching and is embedded directly in moodle @ RLP.
Alternatively, the software can also be called up separately via the web browser.
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