Commissioner Candice McQueen at the Tennessee Department of Education announced that she has pursued official channels through the Davidson County District Attorney General to formally engage the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the State Office of Homeland Security in an investigation into Tuesday’s TNReady traffic pattern that was consistent with an online attack.
She and her team initially engaged TBI and their cyber security expertise in a briefing on Tuesday and worked through various channels today to officially engage them alongside the State Office of Homeland Security.
Commissioner McQueen also announced on Wednesday that the department is initiating the engagement of a third party with cyber security expertise to analyze testing vendor Questar’s response to the possible cyber-attack on Tuesday.
There continues to be zero evidence that any student information or data was compromised in the incident.
Officials said, "We had a smooth day of testing today, with more than 150,000 online test sessions completed – the highest one-day total ever for online testing in Tennessee. About 300,000 students will take TNReady online this year, and while those students will participate in multiple test sessions, the statistics we see today confirm that we are able to move forward successfully with online testing."