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Cyber incident: latest update

16 Jun 2023

A week on since we shared the news of the cyber incident, a summary of where we are

It’s a week since we shared the news that the University has been the victim of a cyber incident. We understand that this is an anxious time, but please be assured that we are taking a calm and measured approach to our planning.

Over the last week, we have communicated key decisions as they have been made. As this is a fast-evolving situation however, as we learn more, we have been adapting our approach.

We must also carefully consider the information we share as this could be used by the perpetrators to change their tactics and cause further disruption.

Below is a summary of where we currently are: 

Passwords 

University passwords will need to be reset. We are now confident we can do this in a different way than we communicated earlier in the week, which minimises potential system overload. The prompt to change your password will come as a direct email from PJ Hemmaway, Director of IT Services, with instructions on how to do it. You can expect to receive this w/c 26 June. If you have already changed your password in these last few days, you will still need to change it again when you receive the email from PJ. 

Experian 

The Experian offer is nearly ready, but we are spending further time to ensure that this is as inclusive and comprehensive as possible for colleagues and students. 

Additional email filtering 

Changes have been made to the University email system to give us a greater level of protection from phishing emails. Read more about the email filtering changes.

Access to systems 

  • The Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection will remain switched off. This means that ‘remoting in’ to University systems and services from off campus is not possible. These systems are available from on campus, only. We will advise when the VPN service is made available again. 
  • The Microsoft 365 suite, including Sharepoint, Teams, Outlook and other applications such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint continues to be available from either on or off campus. 
  • BlackBoard is expected to continue to be available, both on and off campus. 
  • There will continue to be some disruption to systems at short notice, as we carry on work around this incident. As far as is possible, we will communicate when systems are impacted and/or unavailable. 

We understand that this is a difficult time for everyone, both practically and mentally, but as we continue to work through this live and evolving situation, please bear with us. We have highly skilled and experienced teams and experts working on this, around the clock. Our huge thanks go to them and of course, all of you who are re-prioritising tasks and working differently to keep our University operating. 

 

Patrick Hackett 

Registrar, Secretary and Chief Operating Officer