A major Australian university has fallen victim to a cybersecurity attack that impacted key services, including student personal information.
Queensland University of Technology’s IT department issued an alarm Thursday morning.
Several printers began generating a flood of questionable messages, and students were instructed not to interact with them until further notice.
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The message says that the university system has “taken a beating.”
“What happened was most likely due to a decision to save money for security,” it reads.
“Unfortunately, as a result, your important data was not only encrypted, but also copied.
“From there you can publish online. That way anyone on the internet from the darknet…and even your employees can see your internal documents.”
The message then demanded money in exchange for the data.
QUT reported a cohort of 53,253 students and over 4,500 staff in 2021.
In a statement, a QUT spokesperson said the university “experienced today a cybersecurity incident purported to be the Royal ransomware attack.”
“As a precautionary measure, the QUT IT system has been taken offline until the investigation is complete. At this stage, we are assessing that no student or staff data has been compromised.
“Staff and students have been notified. Students wishing to accept QTAC offers are being contacted to let them know the system is down. They will be notified when the system is back online. increase.
“Technical staff are currently investigating and QUT has notified the relevant authorities of the situation.”
