Cyberattack leads university in St. Thomas, Texas, to go offline

A cyberattack Tuesday disabled the systems of the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas.

The private Catholic institution shared details of the incident in an email to students and university employees on Wednesday. According to the notice, the university has not discovered that any data was compromised, but noted that servers had been placed offline just to be safe.

“We are diligently investigating the issue and are actively working to restore services as quickly as possible,” Interim President Dempsey Rosales Acosta wrote in the email. “We understand the challenges this outage may present and appreciate your adaptability. Our priority at this time is to ensure the safety and security of all university and personal data.”

The Houston Chronicle reported that the incident had created trepidation among at least one student, who was concerned that the disruption may have caused an issue with her enrollment.

Such cyberattacks have become commonplace in recent years. Most recently, Columbia University saw its systems put offline by a cyberattack last June.