Uni of Hertfordshire Suffers Cyber-Attack That Takes Down its Entire IT Network

The University of Hertfordshire in the UK has been hit by a cyber-attack that has taken down its entire IT network as well as blocking access to its cloud-based services.

The higher education institution revealed the attack occurred late on Wednesday 14 April in a statement posted on its website earlier today. As a result, all its online classes scheduled today (15 April) have been cancelled.

The statement read: “Shortly before 22:00 last night, the University experienced a cyber-attack which has impacted all of our systems, including those in the Cloud such as Canvas, MS Teams and Zoom. Please be reassured that our IT colleagues are working hard to rectify the situation as soon as possible.

“However, as a result, all online teaching will be cancelled today (Thursday 15 April), and we understand that this may impact students being able to submit assignments. We want to reassure our students that no-one will be disadvantaged as a consequence of this.

“Any in-person, on-campus teaching may still continue today, if computer access is not required, but students will have no onsite or remote access to computer facilities in the LRC’s, labs or the University Wi-Fi.

“We apologise for the inconvenience this situation has caused and will continue to keep you updated. You can check the status of all our systems by visiting https://status.herts.ac.uk/.”

Currently, there are no further details about the nature of the attack, although there has been a sharp rise in ransomware attacks targeting higher hertfordshire suffers cyber attack takes entire network