A technical breakdown on Parcoursup a few minutes before its closure caused a wave of stress among high school students.
Already well known for being a great source of anxiety for high school students and their families, Parcoursup, whose source code vulnerability is worrying, triggered a wave of panic this Wednesday, April 3 in the evening. Indeed, a few minutes before the closing of the formulation of wishes, an outage sowed chaos, preventing many students from finalizing their files.
Faced with this emergency, the Ministry of Higher Education and Research announced an extension of the deadline to this Thursday, April 4 at 10 p.m. This exceptional measure comes after the detection of a server malfunction, limiting access to the platform.
Students, already under pressure, found themselves faced with an even more stressful situation, exacerbated by uncertainty and the fear of not being able to validate their orientation choices.
Postponement of the deadline for validation of wishes after a stressful evening
The ministry reacted very quickly to limit the damage from this unexpected outage. By postponing the validation deadline until this Thursday evening, April 4, it offers a respite to high school students caught off guard. If this extension delights some of them, others are still anxious.
Error messages on Parcoursup began appearing on the site page at 9 p.m., with “ the end date for confirmation of wishes has passed “, ” the site is currently saturated “, or ” page not found » which were displayed. Many Internet users reacted strongly on the Web, particularly on X.com, with varying degrees of derision.
Journalists from Parisian collected the stories of Nahil and Charlotte, two high school students affected by the outage. They perfectly illustrate the distress felt by thousands of students. “ I had been connected to the platform since 7 p.m. and I was disconnected around 10 p.m., […] but I did not have time to finalize the one for Sciences Po Paris, one of the most important », confides Nahil.
Charlotte, for her part, never stopped forcing connections to validate her wishes. “ From 8 p.m. onwards, I tried to connect, but I couldn’t. I tried everything: on my phone, my computer… nothing worked. I was worried for myself, but also for my friends who hadn’t had time to finalize everything. I’m reassured now, but it was a huge stress hit “, she says.
Parcoursup accessible again, but the origin of the outage remains unknown and raises concerns
The breakdown therefore seems to have been repaired, as attested by the publication of Parcoursup during the night.
The origin of the outage remains uncertain, but the possibility of a cyberattack has not been ruled out. Recent events, including attacks claimed by Anonymous Sudan against French ministries, raise concerns about the security of national digital infrastructures. In this context, vigilance is required, especially with the Olympic Games and the European elections on the horizon, events likely to attract the attention of cybercriminals.
This situation has highlighted the vulnerability of this platform, which is often talked about. Many high school students, now students, we hope for them, have paid the price of a fragile infrastructure, exposed to bugs or cyberattacks.
We remember, for example, that in 2019, the site was the victim of a bug which left 67,000 registrants in trouble. Rebelote in 2023, where 84,000 candidates were still without assignments at the beginning of July.
“ Graduate first » remains for the moment the safest option for continuing your studies, with or without Parcoursup. ANSSI is also concerned about the shortage of talent in cybersecurity professions. Does that tempt you?
Source : The Parisian
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