UW dealing with suspected ransomware attack

The University of Waterloo is assessing the impacts after what they suspect to have been a ransomware attack on its online systems.

Rebecca Elming is the director of media relations and issues management with the University of Waterloo and she said in an email to CityNews Kitchener that that attack was intercepted while in progress.

“We know that our on-premises email server was compromised. Fortunately, 99.9 per cent of our email users are not affected because their email services are hosted in the cloud,” said Elming.

She added the IT team at UW is also working to assess whether any further online systems were affected, and is continuing to take steps to secure systems and data.

“We are fortunate that the prompt actions of law enforcement agencies, our internal IT teams, Microsoft and external cybersecurity partners acted quickly to identify and respond to this threat to avoid the worst outcomes.”