Cyberattack on UK's Academic Institution Affects Zoom and Other Digital Learning Platforms

As most of the students are dependent on online learning and video-conferencing apps due to the pandemic, the University of Hertfordshire in the UK has suffered a cyber-attack that has eventually disrupted its online learning.

According to a ZDNet report, the cyber-attack has affected all of its IT systems, including Office 365, Teams and Zoom, local networks, Wi-Fi, email, data storage and VPN.

The university reported the hit by attackers on Wednesday, resulting in the cancellation of all online classes on Thursday and Friday.

"Shortly before 22:00 on Wednesday 14 April, the University experienced a cyber-attack which has impacted all of our systems, including those in the Cloud such as Canvas, MS Teams and Zoom," the varsity said in an update on its website.

The university noted that the outage may impact students submitting assignments, but assured them that no student, would be disadvantaged as a result.

Students were allowed to attend the university so long as computer access wasn't necessary.

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"You will not be able to access computer facilities in the LRCs, Labs or the University Wi-Fi. Remote access to specialist software and PCs is currently unavailable," the varsity said.

The university's system status page, last updated 17 hours ago, shows the extent of the disruption.