Blackboard Access Issue

April 27, 2023 7:59 a.m.
Outage category: 
Blackboard
Location: 
Blackboard
Status: 
Closed
Resolved alert: 
04/20/2023 11:39 am

Some users reported issues accessing Blackboard. When users attempt to access Blackboard, they get the following error: “This site can’t be reached.”

Initial symptoms: 

Received a notice from the Support Center via Team Chat.

Duration: 
04/20/2023 8:58 am - 04/20/2023 11:39 am
Impact to Mason: 

Some users reported issues accessing Blackboard.

Affected Services: 
Class Collaborate (formerly Blackboard Collaborate Ultra), Blackboard Courses
ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS
Cause: 

DDoS attack on DNS servers. On April 20th, Anthology’s DNS servers experienced a targeted and excessive amount of DNS requests
which was intended to deny servicing DNS requests. DNS servers became overwhelmed and unable to
service requests.

Resolution: 

On April 25th, a change was executed to enhance our DNS services to prevent DDoS events. However, this change was not successful which propagated incorrect DNS information across the internet. The change was rolled back but DNS is a pull-based request and took time to propagate the correction across the internet.

Prevention: 

Anthology/Blackboard is planning to re-execute the upgrade to our DNS services to prevent issues
like the one experienced on 4/20. This change is targeted for Friday 4/28.

STATISTICS
Service Team: 
Online Learning Resources