Security News > 2021 > March > University of the Highlands and Islands shuts down campuses as it deals with 'ongoing cyber incident'

The University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland is fending off "An ongoing cyber incident" that has shut down its campuses.

"We are currently working to isolate and minimise impact from this incident with assistance from external partners. We do not believe personal data has been affected," said the university, adding: "The source of the incident is not yet known."

An email sent to students and published on UHI's website said that its Office 365, Cisco Webex, OneDrive, Teams, and email services, among others, were not affected by the apparent intrusion.

Regular readers will recognise UHI's wording as having lots in common with the early stages of previous ransomware attacks: unattributed "Cyber incidents" that mysteriously knock out large swathes of IT services across an organisation are the usual tell-tale.

Such incidents have happened to insurance companies, charities and other corporate bodies with increasing frequency over the last year.

Best practice in case of a ransomware attack is not to engage with the attackers' demands for money, though desperate organisations have increasingly begun turning to cyber insurance companies whose policies may buy off the criminals and clear the infection.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/03/08/uni_highlands_islands_cyber_incident/