Apparent cyberattacks hit 7 Louisiana colleges in 4 months: ‘I’m hoping it’s a wake up call.’

Spanish Moss drapes from the branches of a large oak tree, Tuesday, June 28, 2022, on the campus of Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, La.

STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK

An SLU official said Monday the university’s network was “significantly back to normal,” but that the university could still not offer any information about what happened or if any data was breached while LSP’s investigation continued.

Cyberattacks?

Brett Callow, a threat analyst with the cyber security firm Emsisoft, said the attack on UNO was “almost certainly a cyberattack.” Callow said the speed with which UNO restored its systems indicated that the university became aware of the attack before the network was encrypted, though it’s still possible the bad actors had access to data.

Since 2019, when Emsisoft began tracking incidents, there have been between 84 and 89 annual incidents in U.S. schools and school districts. So far this year in the U.S. there have been 14 cyberattacks on post-secondary schools, 11 of which involved data breaches, and 12 cyberattacks on K-12 districts, 10 of which involved data breaches, Callow said.

If ransomware attacks aren’t detected in time it can lead to years of massive disruption and millions spent in remediation, Callow said. Data released on the internet can go beyond financial information and has included students’ psychological evaluations and disciplinary records.

On Monday, UNO said its guest Wi-Fi, email, Moodle and Zoom were back online, but said students who had not set up multi-factor authentication could not access email, Moodle and Zoom. The university said on Sunday that secure campus Wi-Fi, internet, Workday, PeopleSoft and other systems were also down.

The university would not comment on whether there was any indication that student or faculty data had been compromised.

“I want our campus community to know that this is a complex process in which we are incrementally bringing services back online as safely and quickly as possible,” UNO President John Nicklow said in a statement on Monday. “In particular, I want our students to know that we will work to support them through this disruption. We appreciate their patience.”

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