Okanagan College crippled by cyberattack

Phone, email and all other internet services at Okanagan College crashed on Monday and the outage continues today, Jan. 11.

“On Monday morning at about 6:15 a.m. our IT Services team interrupted a cyber-security incident,” college president Neil Fassina wrote in an email to the Okanagan College community. “This incident, which involved an unrecognized external agent, was identified by our team’s routine and proactive surveillance.”

IT Services shut down and disabled network access across all campuses within 45 minutes and an external cyber-security expert was brought in to help.

“Unfortunately, as a result of the cyberattack, our network services continue to be offline and, this morning (Wednesday), the outage has impacted our public website and learning management site (Moodle),” Fassina wrote. “It has also impacted our ability to send all-user emails to our students and staff.

“We are working to determine whether any personal information has been compromised. Although it is a priority for us to restore access to the network as soon as possible, we must do this in a safe and secure way.”

The college has also sent out a news release advising students and staff to monitor their emails and be careful about opening or responding to any unexpected messages purporting to be from the college.

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