The Technological University of Dublin and the National College of Ireland (NCI) have stated that ransomware attack’s hit their IT systems.
NCI is currently struggling to restore IT services after being hit by a ransomware attack over the weekend that drove the college to take its IT systems offline.
“NCI is currently experiencing a significant disruption to IT services that have impacted several college systems, including Moodle, the Library service, and the current students’ MyDetails service,” the NCI declared on Saturday.
In an update following the April 3rd ransomware attack, NCI spokesperson informed faculty and staff that IT staff and external service providers struggle to restore the services.
Access to NCI’s IT systems was halted, and the campus building is also currently blocked to both students and staff until the services are restored.
NCI has also alerted the incident’s relevant authorities, including the Data Protection Commissioner and Gardai (The National Police of the Republic of Ireland).
“Please note that all classes, assessments, and induction sessions planned from today, Tuesday 6th until this Thursday, April 8 inclusive, have been postponed and will be researched for a later date,” NCI added in a report issued today.
“The college will issue a further update on Thursday afternoon concerning classes and other events for Friday and beyond,”
“No late penalties will be applied while the outage remains in place,” NCI stated students with assignments due this week.
The Technological University Dublin’s (TU Dublin) Tallaght campus was under attack by the cybercriminals on Thursday morning and has affected both IT operations and campus back-ups.
“Disruption to some ICT systems on Tallaght campus but secure remote access to key services is available,” TU Dublin says in an announcement on the University’s site. “ICT Helpdesk cannot respond to requests while issues are investigated. ICT will send updates via email.”
As per the email sent to the students and obtained by DataBreaches, “this attack does not include any ICT systems or processes on the City and Blanchardstown campuses.”
ICT also informed students not to use any of the campus’s IT systems until Monday, April 12, until the systems are restored. To avoid reaching out to IT staff who is currently operating on restoring impacted IT systems.
“At this early stage in the investigation, there is no indication that any data, including personal data, has been ex-filtrated, downloaded, copied, or edited because of this attack,” reported a TU Dublin spokesperson.
“The University continues to work as a matter of urgency to restore safe access for students and staff to all our onsite ICT systems as soon as possible.”
In parallel news, Brown University, an Ivy League US research university, is still operating on bringing systems online after incapacitating them following a Cyberattack on Tuesday.
Last month, the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) Cyber Division informed cybersecurity professionals of aggravated Pysa ransomware activity targeting education institutions in multiple US states and the United Kingdom.
For the time being, no data is available on the cybercriminal gangs behind the two ransomware attacks.
