Just in Time for Fall Term, a Cyberattack Forces an Entire College’s Systems Offline

A debilitating malware attack has forced a college known for “powerhouse” cybersecurity programs to shut down all its systems, just as it prepares for the fall semester. On August 8 the Stevens Institute of Technology (NJ) noticed “system-access issues” and alerted users to what it later called a “very severe and sophisticated” cyberattack. The college disabled its systems and networks as a precaution, it said, apparently disrupting a swath of tasks needed to run the college: email, payroll, tuition payments, class scheduling, summer course assignments, its virtual private network, and more.