University of Winnipeg says some staff, student information stolen in cyberattack

An investigation into a cyberattack that took down the University of Winnipeg’s network last month has found the personal information of some staff and students was compromised.

The university says data was likely stolen before the school became aware of the attack.

Some of the compromised data includes names, birthdays and social insurance numbers of current and former employees with the school since 2003.

All current and former staff who have been with the school since 2015 may have also had their bank account information stolen.

Students who were enrolled beginning in September 2018 are at risk of having their names, social insurance numbers and addresses compromised.

The university says it is offering a two-year credit monitoring service, which allows people to check for signs of identity fraud, to all those affected.

The school continues to look into whether others may have been affected and says the investigation could take months.

“Our community has been subject to a cybercrime,” the university said in a release Thursday.

“This has been a terrible incident that has directly impacted our community, and for that we are deeply sorry. Rest assured that we will carefully consider the results of our investigation with a commitment to emerge from this incident with stronger cyber defences.”

The school has extended its winter term and exam schedule to give students and instructors more time to prepare.

The school said Wednesday it has been able to get some of its online services up and running again.