District-Wide Email Shutdown Prompted by Gmail Breach

by Octavia Donaldson, Staff Writer

On May 1, an SMMUSD student learned how to email all smmk12 emails, or the SMMUSD district student gmail accounts simultaneously. The student sent a mass email pointing out the discovery to all students in the district, and shortly after, district-wide emails were being sent between students. For 16 minutes, messages filled with profanity, song lyrics and students pleas to stop the emails filled SMMUSD student inboxes. The SMMUSD technology team became aware of the Gmail breach shortly after the emailing began and proceeded to disable all student email accounts throughout the district.

The morning after the incident, SMMUSD Superintendant Dr. Ben Drati emailed families explaining the situation. In the email sent on May 2, Drati informed parents of how the unprecedented circumstance would affect online classes. Classes are currently being run through Google Classroom and require student emails to access. Additionally, the district Gmail accounts are necessary for virtual meetings with teachers through Google Meet and communication between students and teachers via Gmail.

Ultimately, all Google Applications, including Google Classroom, remained running. The district did however disable direct emailing entirely between teachers, students and parents. In the email update, communication through the public stream on a Google Classroom class and private commenting on Google Documents were suggested as alternative means of correspondence between students and teachers. Additionally, due to the fact that the disturbance transpired on a Friday night, some students did not feel a major disruption to distanced learning.

“All the emailing happened on a Friday, and our emails were back up and running by Monday, so I don’t feel it impacted my classes much. It was pretty annoying though,” Catharina Lopez (’23) said.

The district suggested that all students and parents sign out of their SMMUSD Gmail accounts immediately. Instructions on how to successfully do so were included in Drati’s email and pertained to Apple and Android devices. On Monday, regular Gmail access was returned to students, parents and teachers within the district and protection from an incident like this in the future was added.