On Monday, Munster Technological University in Ireland declared that its campuses in Cork would be shut down due to a major IT breach and telephone outage. All classes, both full-time and part-time, have been cancelled for Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the university's statement. It is believed that a number of learning tools, such as Canvas which is used to manage student assignments, have been affected. It is not known when MTU expects to be able to get them back up and running, or if classes will be cancelled from Thursday onwards. Paul Gallagher, the vice president, said that they have taken this precaution to allow them to fully assess the situation and protect their systems. The university, which was established last year after the merger of the Cork Institute of Technology and the Institute of Technology, Tralee, has more than 18,000 students. It has six campuses, four of which are in Cork and have been closed, and two in Tralee which remain open. This attack is part of a wave of similar incidents targeting German-speaking technical universities. Last week, the University of Zurich, Switzerland's largest university, reported that it was the target of a serious cyberattack. During the last week of January, the Harz University of Applied Sciences in Saxony-Anhalt, Ruhr West University, and the EU/FH European University of Applied Sciences all also reported being impacted by cyberattacks. It is worth noting that the name of the Irish province of Munster in the country's southwest, for which the university is named, is very similar to the German city of Münster. The university was due to host a Cybersecurity for Business workshop starting next Monday. This is not the first time that higher education establishments in Ireland have been affected by a cyberattack. In April 2021, the National College of Ireland and the Technological University of Dublin were hit by ransomware attacks. In September of the same year, the National University of Ireland, Galway, announced that it had taken its systems offline after another attempted attack.
This Cyber News was published on therecord.media. Publication date: Tue, 07 Feb 2023 13:57:02 +0000