U of W to undergo campus-wide reboot; forensic analysis into cyberattack promised

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This article was published 01/04/2024 (565 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The University of Winnipeg has pushed back exams again, cancelled sporting events and ordered a mass password reset as the institution continues to cope with the fallout of a cyberattack more than a week ago.

University students, staff and faculty were directed to reset their passwords to help technicians regain access to critical internal systems just weeks before exams, pushed back to April 18, are set to begin.

“It’s in your hands folks, we need your help to get these password resets as quickly as possible,” said Kim Benoit, chief information officer for the university during a Monday afternoon Zoom town hall hosted by the U of W.

Students have been asked to reset their passwords before 8 a.m. on Wednesday. After that, the school will direct a forced reboot to anyone trying to log in to internal university systems, an email sent to students and staff Monday said.

After restoring its multi-factor authentication system over the Easter long weekend, students, staff and faculty can now access some services like Microsoft-based applications Outlook and Teams, but “priority” systems such as registration system WebAdvisor, financial information systems and Nexus, the school’s learning-management system in which many professors store and disseminate the bulk of their curriculum, remain unavailable.

The university is working on identifying the source of the hack, university president Todd Mondor said.

“We will be doing a full forensic analysis of how the breach happened, how the threat actor was able to gain entrance to the system and damage it, and if there are steps we can take to mitigate against … any similar action in the future,” he said, adding there’s still no evidence to suggest personal data was stolen in the breach.

“Our intention is to be transparent with all of you and keep you updated … all hands are on deck.”

No one from the university was made available for followup questions Monday.

The school has retained outside help from “experts” and is receiving support from “peer institutions,” Benoit told the town hall, which was attended by approximately 1,000 people.

In February, Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ont., fell victim to a cyberattack that took down the school’s internal systems for nearly two weeks. Laurentian later admitted personal information was stolen from students and personnel, past and present, at the university’s school of medicine and ecology unit.

Benoit said the U of W’s priority is to restore operations before moving forward with preventative plans.

“At the end of the day, the largest, biggest organizations in the world with massive budgets are getting hit,” she said. “Once we get that forensics analysis … that’s when we’ll have that deep-dive look and see where our vulnerabilities are and where we can fix them.”

The university shut down its internal network and took systems offline on March 24, once its technology team became aware of the attack. Mondor has described it as a “targeted criminal attack.”

The winter term was extended to April 12 over the weekend. The university has advised students to check with their instructors to find out if their course has been extended to make up for the online disruptions.

The exam period is now scheduled to take place April 18 to May 2. The start of exams was initially delayed to early April, and the university made the decision last week to give students more time to prepare in the aftermath of the breach.

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Due to the extension of the term, the move-out date for students living in residence was pushed back to May 3. The university said coordinators will connect with students in residence to provide more details.

The spring term’s start date — slated for May 6 — is not expected to be impacted.

Because of the cyberattack, the Winnipeg Basketball League, which the university’s Wesmen athletics department is a partner, also cancelled its spring season. Refunds will be issued to registered teams as soon as possible, an announcement on the league’s website states.

Last week, the Winnipeg Police Service and Advanced Education Minister Renée Cable both confirmed they were aware of the incident.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca

Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer

Nicole Buffie is a reporter for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom as a multimedia producer in 2023. Read more about Nicole.

Every piece of reporting Nicole produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.