Howard University has canceled classes and switched off its internet service after its IT team detected a ransomware cyberattack over the Labor Day weekend.
The Washington DC school also closed its campus to all but essential staff and turned off its WiFi connectivity, including in student dorms.
The historically-black college wrote in a press release on Monday that the breach was detected by the university's Enterprise Technology Services, who uncovered 'unusual activity' on the network on Friday and shut it down to investigate.
In a later update, the school wrote that in-person classes will resume tomorrow and that an alternative WiFi source would be made available on campus.
But online and hybrid courses will remain suspended.
'To date, there has been no evidence of personal information being accessed or exfiltrated,' the school assured in the statement.
'However, our investigation remains ongoing, and we continue to work toward clarifying the facts surrounding what happened and what information has been accessed.'
The school gave no indication of when online or hybrid courses would resume.
Executive Vice President Tashni-Ann Dubroy said that the process would be 'a long haul - not an overnight solution.'
The school have not said exactly what activity had triggered the lockdown, what systems may have been compromised, or whether hackers had demanded a ransom.
Howard University wrote in a press release on Monday that the breach was detected by the university's Enterprise Technology Services, who uncovered 'unusual activity' on the network and shut it down intentionally to investigate
Presently, the entirety of Howard's campus is shut down, with the exception of its two cafeterias.
Howard is the latest educational institution to be hit by ransomware since the coronavirus pandemic began - the FBI's Cyber Division recently warned that cybercriminals are now targeting schools as they shift en masse to remote learning.
'Since 2020, ransomware groups have been looking at colleges and universities as a way to get bigger payouts,' Allan Liska, a data analyst with Recorded Future, told The Daily Beast.
'And, unfortunately, because of the nature of these networks, college and universities have a large and often poorly secured attack surface.'
'Generally, when schools cancel classes, it means at least some critical systems were locked up by the ransomware actors,' said Liska. 'We’ll know more in the coming days, but that is usually the case.'
Currently, there are 6,526 undergraduate-level students at Howard University, and 10,002 students in total. Classes began on August 23.
Nnamezie Ononuju, a first-year medical student at Howard, told MSN that the shutdown forced him use the WiFi at a nearby Starbucks on Sunday to study, and
