Columbia University investigating cyber incident after tech outages

Columbia University officials are investigating a potential cybersecurity incident after students reported widespread technology outages and strange images appearing on screens across campus. 

The school’s website and other systems have been intermittently offline since Tuesday morning, and Columbia officials said the New York Police Department is now involved in the response. 

“Yesterday morning, Columbia University IT systems experienced an outage affecting systems on our Morningside campus,” a spokesperson told Recorded Future News.  

“Our IT team has been working to restore services as quickly as possible, and we have notified law enforcement. At this time, no clinical operations at [Columbia University Irving Medical Center] have been impacted.”

A person close to the situation said there is no sign of data being compromised, or of ransomware. There does not appear to have been a “deep incursion” into Columbia's University’s systems, said the person, who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely about the outage.

The school’s website has a banner confirming that it is “experiencing widespread system outages” and is working to restore services. 

Students took to social media to share images of digital signs on campus that were taken over and replaced with images of President Donald Trump. 

The campus newspaper, the Columbia Spectator, reported that students could not sign in to the authentication service they use to access email accounts and platforms for assignments. The school sent out multiple messages throughout Tuesday warning of the outages and urging professors to make alternative arrangements for classes. 

If confirmed, a cyberattack on Columbia University would be the second this year on a major New York City educational institution after a hacker defaced the website of New York University (NYU) and exposed the personal information of more than 1 million students in March.  

Two weeks ago, NYU reported the data breach to several state regulators, warning that thousands of people had Social Security numbers and other information exposed as a result of the incident. An investigation revealed that hackers stole files between October 20 and March 21, the school said. 

Several other schools, including the University of Oklahoma and Western New Mexico University have struggled with technology outages caused by cyberattacks this year.