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The 16 May Wi-Fi and systems outage were related to internal incident, not malicious action, the university COO has confirmed.
The chief operating officer (COO) of The Australian National University (ANU) has confirmed that a “widespread IT outage” experienced by the campus last week was due to an IT failure.
“Most of you will be aware that on Friday, 16 May, the ANU experienced a widespread IT outage that impacted Wi-Fi services and key systems and software applications across most of the day,” ANU COO, Jonathan Churchill, said in a 20 May update on the university’s website.
“I wanted to take this opportunity to provide some clarity on what occurred and to also recognise the efforts of everyone involved who ensured the continued operation of the university.”
Churchill addressed the fact that such an event “understandably creates concern within our community” and went on to confirm the cause of the disruption.
“I can confirm for you that the outage was caused by an IT infrastructure failure,” Churchill said.
“Whilst the full engineering report is still being finalised, ITS and ISO staff continue working to ensure our systems are reliable and resilient.”
Churchill acknowledged the work of ANU security staff, as well as the work of many who “implemented contingency plans and developed creative workarounds to keep things running”.
“While no one wants an incident like this to occur, the way our staff came together in response shows ANU at its very best – collaborative, committed and resilient,” Churchill said.
While the COO said the outage occurred last Friday, Cyber Daily understands that some systems remain down as of 22 May.
In addition, ANU has warned students that a “planned IT systems outage” will take place between 12pm Friday, 23 May and 10am Monday, 26 May. This outage will impact various systems, including MyTimetable, eForms and ISIS, the university’s interactive student information system.
Students have been advised to contact ANU’s Student Central if this outage will interfere with any deadlines.
“Following the outage, ISIS (the Interactive Student Information System) will become ANUHub – your new self-service portal,” ANU said.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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