Truman State University was attacked by hackers who infected the school with malware.
The malware took down the school’s internet connection, preventing students in the classrooms, email services, and IT department from being able to function. No group has yet to take responsibility for the attack, but Truman officials believe similar attacks are happening across multiple universities in a wave of cyberattacks.
Though systems were knocked down on April 21, they were brought back partially on April 26. However, email services and online classrooms are still offline. To restore the email services, the university is updating their systems to Office 365 Email several months earlier than they intended to.
“Originally planned for later this summer, this transition will not alter any campus email addresses. Because this transition is being done on an accelerated timeline, not all features will be immediately available, but it will allow email service to resume,” Truman State University said in a recent social media post.
Students are being advised to use their own devices for the time being, but only while using their cellular data, not the schools Wi-Fi or any university-owned machines. To be lenient, Truman is removing the rules and penalty for missed tests, missed assignments, and other deadlines due between April 21 and the end of the semester.
Truman released an FAQ detailing the situation and providing rapid updates to the situation. In the most recent updates, it detailed that hourly employee time clocks are functioning again, and the Student Research Conference is expected to go as normal, though students who don’t feel prepared to present dont have to.
However, while things return to normal, there’s still no information regarding who the hackers are or if any data has been stolen from students or the university. Truman officials claim that it’s too early to tell what’s been stolen, if anything.