University of Texas forced to take systems offline in San Antonio after cyberattack
One of the largest universities in Texas is facing a wide range of disruptions following a cyberattack announced on Monday morning.
The University of Texas at San Antonio, which serves 40,000 students across six campuses, said its IT team identified threat activity on its academic campus over the weekend and took some systems, including phones, offline in response.
Classes for many students begin on Wednesday, and the disruptions threaten to snarl systems people use to sign up for courses and submit payments for services.
Michael Schnabel, the organization’s chief technology officer, said in a statement that the threat activity was detected at the edge of the university’s network and was contained before it reached “core systems and University Technology Solutions.” The university did not respond to questions about what was impacted.
“At this time, our ongoing investigation has found no evidence that university data was accessed or exfiltrated as a result of this activity,” Schnabel said. “With classes beginning this Wednesday, we recognize how important, reliable access to university systems and services is for our students, faculty and staff. Our teams are working with great care to ensure that our technology environment is both available and secure as we begin the new academic year.”
In light of the outages, the school said the deadline for student payments was extended to Friday and several other changes were made to the wait lists for courses.
Late on Monday, the university said it planned for all students and teachers to reset their passwords but in a Tuesday update, they warned that the password reset effort was experiencing delays.
No hacking group has taken credit for the attack.
Cybercriminals have repeatedly targeted universities at the beginning and end of school years in an effort to force organizations to pay exorbitant ransoms. In May, universities across the U.S. were forced to delay final exams following a damaging cyberattack on a critical education software provider.
Other large state universities like the University of Oklahoma, Stanford and the University of Michigan faced ransomware attacks following holiday breaks. The University of Pennsylvania had its email system disrupted in October during a cybersecurity incident while Columbia and Harvard Universities both faced attack last year.
References in this story
- University leaders provide important updates on university technology solutions - UT San Antonio Today news.utsa.edu UT San Antonio identified attempted unauthorized activity against technology systems on the academic campus over the weekend.
- Multiple universities forced to reschedule final exams after Canvas cyber incident therecord.media On Thursday, dozens of students took to social media to say they saw a message from a cybercriminal group as they navigated through Canvas, an educational platform created by Instructure that hosts teaching materials…
- University of Oklahoma isolates systems after ‘unusual activity’ on IT network therecord.media The school, which has more than 34,000 students, appeared on the leak site of a ransomware gang on Tuesday, with the group claiming to have stolen 91 GB of data that allegedly includes employee data, financial…
- Stanford says data from 27,000 people leaked in September ransomware attack therecord.media The university said the hackers gained access to a network belonging to the Department of Public Safety over a four-and-a-half month period last year.
- University of Michigan severs ties to internet after cyberattack therecord.media The University of Michigan announced that it has severed its ties to the internet and cut off access to some systems after experiencing a cyberattack that began on Sunday.
- University of Pennsylvania investigating offensive email sent through graduate school system therecord.media The University of Pennsylvania is investigating an email that was sent out to thousands of current and former students on Friday afternoon containing offensive language and threats of a data breach.
- Columbia University says hacker stole SSNs and other data of nearly 900,000 therecord.media Data breach notifications filed with state governments explain the types of data taken from Columbia University networks in a widely publicized cyberattack earlier this year.
- Harvard says ‘limited number of parties’ impacted by breach linked to Oracle zero-day therecord.media Harvard University said a recent incident that is impacting Oracle E-Business Suite customers impacted a "limited number of parties associated with a small administrative unit."
- Advanced Cyber Threat Intelligence | Recorded Future www.recordedfuture.com Get real-time, actionable cyber threat intelligence with Recorded Future. Mitigate cyber risks, prioritize threats, and proactively secure your organization.
- jon greig (@jgreigj) on X twitter.com @TheRecord_Media cybersecurity reporter. formerly @zdnet @cambodiadaily @haitiantimes_ — send tips to [email protected] or signal: jgreig.51
- jon greig (@jgreig.bsky.social) bsky.app cybersecurity reporter for The Record. formerly: zdnet, techrepublic, blavity, haitian times, cambodia daily — send tips to [email protected] or signal: jgreig.51
