The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), one of the largest universities in Texas with roughly 40,000 students across six campuses, has been grappling with widespread IT disruptions after detecting a cyberattack over the weekend.
The university’s IT team identified threat activity at the edge of its network and took several systems offline in response, including phone services. Chief Technology Officer Michael Schnabel said the activity was contained before it reached core systems and University Technology Solutions.
“At this time, our ongoing investigation has found no evidence that university data was accessed or exfiltrated as a result of this activity,” Schnabel said in a statement, adding that teams were working to keep the technology environment both available and secure as the new academic year begins.
The timing is particularly disruptive: classes for many students were set to begin Wednesday, and the outages threaten systems students rely on to register for courses and submit payments. In response, UTSA extended its student payment deadline to Friday and adjusted several course wait list procedures.
Late Monday, the university announced plans for all students and faculty to reset their passwords. By Tuesday, officials warned that the reset process was experiencing delays.
The university has not responded to questions about which specific systems were impacted, and no hacking group has claimed responsibility for the attack as of publication.
Part of a Broader Pattern
Cybercriminals have repeatedly targeted universities at the start and end of academic terms, timing attacks to maximize pressure for ransom payments. In May, a cyberattack on a critical education software provider forced universities across the United States to delay final exams.
Other major state universities, including the University of Oklahoma, Stanford, and the University of Michigan, have faced ransomware attacks following holiday breaks. The University of Pennsylvania experienced an email system disruption in October tied to a cybersecurity incident, while Columbia University and Harvard University both dealt with attacks last year.
UTSA has not disclosed whether ransomware was involved in this incident or provided a timeline for full system restoration.