Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is three days into dealing with a malware attack that has shut down much of its computer network, impacting the university’s students as they go into finals for the spring semester.
The attack prompted RPI on Sunday to announce all final examinations, term papers and project reports due on Monday and Tuesday were canceled. In a post on Instagram, the university said grading policies would be modified to reflect the cancelations. Modifications were also being made for any tests that were interrupted by Friday’s attack.
“Rensselaer is investigating a trespass into our University network,” a message sent out to the RPI community Friday night stated. RPI has called on law enforcement to help it deal with the situation but has been silent about the nature of the attack.
“We have temporarily suspended access to the network as we work with law enforcement and cyber security experts to determine the extent of the trespass,” the statement says.
The most recent posting on the home page of RPI’s website is from Thursday.
The world-renowned engineering school’s email system is down, with members of the RPI student body, staff and faculty unable to receive communications. The Student Information System, which provides students with access to courses, catalogs and other information, also is offline. Calling up any of those pages results in the response, “This site can’t be reached.”
U.S. schools, universities, governments and companies are frequent victims of cyberattacks. The city of Albany suffered perhaps the most high-profile attack in the region, a 2019 ransomware that disabled the city’s computer system and destroyed digital files going as far back as 2017. The towns of Guilderland and Colonie as well as Schenectady County have also faced malware attacks.
RPI has advised students that steps are being taking to assist those who are scheduled for final exams being offered online.
“Accommodations will be provided to any student with online exams impacted by the suspended access to the network. Those affected will receive specific information from the Office of the Provost and/or the Academic Deans,” RPI alerted students.
Jesse Madrid, a junior at RPI, was working on an assignment with a classmate when his girlfriend told him she got a notification about the cyberattack.
“We started looking around and we couldn’t access anything — LMS (the Student Information System), our RPI email, anything,” Madrid said.
The wifi at his fraternity house, Phi Sigma Kappa, has also been down since it’s provided by the school. Madrid said the school community has been hectic with students trying to figure out what to do about their finals and assignments, and teachers trying to find ways to connect with them. Some professors, he said, had already had Slack channels set up with their students — but others are scrambling to find ways to reach their students.
“People were making jokes at first,” Madrid said. “But now it’s day three.”
On the Reddit RPI page, one person who identified himself as a faculty member spoke about the situation.
“The RPI faculty have been given no information about this cyberattack beyond that curious unsigned announcement yesterday. We don’t know what happened, how serious the damage was, what is being done, and when we might be back online. We also do not know if this is a widespread problem or unique to RPI,” the comment said.
Reddit often draws RPI students commenting about campus cocnerns. There is a string of comments and speculations as those on the thread attempt to figure out what’s happening and describe how some faculty members are setting up alternate forms of contact.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by TTE staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
