TU Dublin and National College of Ireland Face Ransomware Attack
Access to NCI’s IT Systems is Currently Suspended and The Campus Building Is Closed to Everybody After Ransomware Attack.
Both the National College of Ireland (NCI) and the Technological University of Dublin have reported that their IT systems have been damaged by a ransomware attack.
At present, NCI is trying to fix its IT services affected by a ransomware attack that took place last weekend and constrained the university to take IT systems offline.
In a statement made on Saturday, NCI said:
NCI is currently experiencing significant disruption to IT services that have impacted a number of college systems, including Moodle, the Library service, and the current students’ MyDetails service.
In a notification following the April 3rd ransomware assault, both students and employees were informed that external service suppliers and IT staff are working on reinstating the services.
Access to NCI’s IT systems is currently interrupted and no one (students or employees) is allowed to enter the campus building until services are repaired.
Furthermore, pertinent authorities such as the Data Protection Commissioner and Gardaí (the national police service of the Republic of Ireland) have been notified regarding the incident.
In an announcement issued yesterday, the National College of Ireland (NCI) added:
“Please note that all classes, assessments, and induction sessions planned from today Tuesday 6th until this Thursday 8th April inclusive have been postponed and will be rescheduled for a later date.”
Students were also informed there will be no late sanctions for those who were supposed to present projects or homework this week “while the outage remains in place.”
IT Systems Outage Update: NCI’s IT systems were the victim of a ransomware attack on Saturday, 3rd April. NCI is following all protocols regarding notifications to the Data Protection Commissioner, Gardaí & other relevant authorities.
Further information: https://t.co/0oQfpbf420 pic.twitter.com/ORvuxXdwAi
— NCIRL (@NCIRL) April 5, 2021
On Tuesday morning, The Tallaght campus of the Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin) has also experienced a ransomware attack that has affected both IT systems 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 a notice on the university’s website. “ICT Helpdesk cannot respond to requests while issues are investigated. Updates will be sent via email.
According to an email sent to students and obtained by DataBreaches, “this attack does not include any ICT systems or processes on the City and Blanchardstown campuses.”
Until Monday, April 12, 2021, college students are not allowed to utilize any of the campus IT systems and they were also advised to try to let the IT staff do their job and restore affected IT systems as soon as possible.
“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.”
Apparently, it’s too soon to know if any sensitive data such as names, addresses, email addresses have been stolen during the ransomware attack.
Last month, cybersecurity specialists were alerted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Cyber Division about the growth of Pysa ransomware activity that is targeting education institutions in 12 US states and the United Kingdom.
There are currently no accessible details regarding the ransomware gangs that caused the two attacks.