Acton Broadband adds security after cyberattack
The October 21 incident was a larger-than-usual effort to attack a single customer on the Acton network.
Officials are rolling out new cybersecurity measures after an attack throttled Acton’s broadband network.
The October 21 incident lasted from 6:45 p.m. to 7:55 p.m., according to a newly published after-action report.
Acton Municipal Light Plant Director Jason Bulger, whose job includes broadband oversight, said the attack caused slow speeds for some users. Others had trouble connecting altogether.
Officials weren’t sure who was behind the assault, but they said it was a denial of service attack in which someone intentionally overloaded Acton’s systems with traffic.
“Our team is committed to improving our network’s resilience and ensuring that such incidents are handled swiftly and effectively in the future,” the report said.
Municipal broadband service is available throughout most of Acton.
The network already had some upgraded circuits that help absorb attacks, Bulger told the Light Board last month. Some old equipment remains, and surges like the October incident can overwhelm the system.
Bulger praised staff for their report and said when bad actors break through, officials have found ways to identify the problem, let customers know, and repel the attack “so that what took 30-40 minutes before would take 2-3 minutes.”
As one upgrade, Acton’s broadband team has added its own data receiver to be less reliant on outside vendors and better control incoming traffic.
Bulger said things like this “do happen,” and “it’s the nature of the business.”
He clarified in an email on December 1 that “The attack was not on our equipment, but on one of our customers’ equipment.”
This incident was “noteworthy,” Bulger said, because it was a larger-than-usual effort to reach a single customer on the Acton network.
Bulger said public discussion of specific details can invite further attacks, so he declined to comment on the possible culprit or the target.
