As of noon Wednesday, the university’s websites were unreachable.
The attack happened over the weekend, and SFA officials took its systems offline and severed its Internet connection as preventive measures, read a pinned post on the SFA Facebook page. Email, courseware and university websites were all down.
SFA, which has recently been adopted into the University of Texas System, stated that its IT team was working with authorities and UT System colleagues to assess the situation. There was no timeline available as of Tuesday.
The university has been using social media to update its community on its status and announced that Brightspace learning management system was in the restoration process Wednesday afternoon. Facebook posts encouraged students to start logging back in while also monitoring the Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter for university updates.
Essential personnel were asked to be on campus, employees who could work from home were encouraged to do so, and others were encouraged to take appropriate leave. Professors were asked to use discretion in managing their classes. Faculty and students were communicating via the Facebook comment sections about various concerns and class statuses.
“Our team has spent the day evaluating what has been exposed, what might have been breached and learning what we can do to eliminate any vulnerabilities,” Chief Marketing Communications Officer Graham Garner told KTRE Channel 9 on Monday.
Some professors took to their own social media accounts to interact with students, KTRE reported. The university has a reported 3,000-4,000 students during summer terms. The university has other programming in place, including a summer band camp.
