Cyberattack disrupts Mississippi student financial aid application processing
By Candice Wilder | Originally published by Mississippi Today
The Mississippi Office of Student Financial Aid is temporarily unable to process student applications and payments after a cyberattack on Monday. It’s unclear when that issue will be resolved.
The cyberattack struck the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning offices, which include the student financial aid office. The attack affected the student financial office the most, agency spokesman John Sewell confirmed Thursday, but he did not provide details about the broader impact.
It is still possible to apply for aid online through the Mississippi Aid Application dashboard, or MAAPP, because that operates separately from IHL’s affected system, Sewell said. There have been no reports of the cyberattack affecting individual colleges or universities.
IHL officials are working with federal law enforcement and cybersecurity professionals to determine what happened and whether confidential or sensitive data were accessed or compromised, according to Sewell and a news release from IHL.
Sewell also declined to provide additional details about what happened, what type of cyberattack occurred and why the agency announced the incident days later on Thursday.
The attack against IHL is the latest example of cybersecurity disruptions at state institutions so far this year.
In May, the criminal extortion group ShinyHunters attacked Canvas, a learning management system used by Mississippi State University and thousands of other educational institutions globally. The incident disrupted finals week at MSU, blocking access to coursework, classes and grades — and leaving students scrambling.
A Feb.19 cyberattack forced the University of Mississippi Medical Center to cancel appointments and elective surgeries for nine days. Medical staff had to care for patients without access to Wi-Fi or phone lines. Roughly 650 surgeries were delayed. A month later, the ransomware group Medusa claimed credit for the cyberattack and demanded payment to prevent the publication of stolen data.
This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Source: Original Article
