OCNews

This message was shared with Okanagan College students and staff Wednesday (Jan. 11) morning.

Dear Okanagan College community,

I am writing to update you on the network outage that has impacted our OC community this week and continues to have impacts today.

On Monday morning, at about 6:15 a.m. our IT Services team interrupted a cyber-security incident. This incident, which involved an unrecognized external agent, was identified by our team’s routine and proactive surveillance.

IT Services responded quickly by shutting down and disabling network access across all our campuses within 45 minutes, and launching an investigation to understand the extent of the situation. The College also immediately engaged external cyber-security experts to assist in our response.

Unfortunately, as a result of the cyber attack, our network services continue to be offline and this morning, the outage has impacted our public website and learning management site (Moodle). It has also impacted our ability to send all-user emails to our students and staff.

We are working very hard to restore secure access as soon as possible.

Please be assured that we take privacy and the protection of personal information of our students and staff very seriously. We are working to determine whether any personal information has been compromised. Although it is a priority for us to restore access to the network as soon as possible, we must do this in a safe and secure way.

Out of an abundance of caution, we are notifying the community of this cyber attack.

What can I do to protect my data?

To protect yourself from the risk of identity theft or fraud, we recommend the following:

• If you receive unusual emails or text messages in the days ahead claiming to be from Okanagan College and asking for personal information that you were not expecting, please be vigilant. Do not send personal information unless you are confident the communication is authentic.
• Never respond to any unsolicited requests for your financial information and stay aware of unauthorized transactions related to any of your accounts.

Thank you for your ongoing support and understanding.

Neil Fassina
President, Okanagan College