Finals looming, Rutgers scrambles to respond to ongoing online attacks

With final exams looming, Rutgers University said Thursday evening it was working with federal and state law enforcement to investigate ongoing attacks on its online systems.

The distributed denial-of-service attacks began around 10 a.m. Monday, the second such attack on Rutgers' systems in less than a month. The attack in late March also lasted several days and shut down access to the university's wireless Internet, e-mail, websites, and online course-management system.

"[Rutgers] continues to experience degraded online services," a university message said. "The DDoS attacks are ongoing and persistent."

Distributed denial-of-service attacks involve using multiple computers to make requests of a system. Requests can be as simple as attempting to access a website, over and over, from hundreds of thousands of computers, causing a server to overload.

Details about the ongoing attacks were few, with Rutgers saying it was "unable to share additional details" because of the investigation. Rutgers' IT department and police department are working with the FBI and state Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, the university said. The FBI had been working with Rutgers to investigate the late March attack.

Rutgers "has been implementing a multifaceted approach" that includes making hardware upgrades and web server improvements, the university said.

Rutgers is also preparing for final exams to begin next week, and campus chancellors are working on backup plans for exams that are supposed to be taken online, the school said.