After global ransomware attack, SQU officials assure varsity e-services are safe

Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) officials have assured students and staff that their e-services are safe to access, and that electronic systems were largely unaffected by the recent global cyber attack.

Following the ransomware attack, which hit institutions in 200 countries around the world, Oman’s ministries and authorities were quick to shut down online websites and services as a precautionary measure. 

SQU recently noted that a text message sent to all students by the university itself was safe to access, contrary to rumours that the message originated from a virus.

The text message said, “To stop your device from being affected by the ransomware virus, please visit the link: portal.squ.edu/alert.”

Though students were suspicious that the text message was a ransomware hack, SQU refuted the rumour. “There is no truth to the danger of the link being circulated. You may open the webpage, and follow the instructions outlined,” an official statement said. 

The university also said all internal electronic services have been active and safe to use inside the campus and remotely. However, email services and the wireless network had been temporarily suspended, after servers were attacked by several viruses.

“The servers are currently being upgraded, and the service will be operational once the update is complete and all files have been backed up,” a statement read.

Dr. Saqeb Ali, IT and Information Security specialist at the university, explained that SQU was relatively unaffected by Friday’s global ransomware attack.

“We at SQU have physical firewalls, as well as many other security systems, which offer us protection against such attacks. Our main servers were not affected, and our email service was also not disrupted. We did have a few interruptions when it came to services for students, such as e-learning and our online grading system, but those have only had a minor impact.”

“However, our internet is still not back on, as the university is now doing a complete sweep of our online assets to see if anything has been affected. This will take time as we are a large campus. The administrators shut down our internet on Saturday evening, in the wake of the attack and it will take some time before it is back on.”

Advice

Dr. Ali advised students to take precautions and back up any data which is important. “If you don’t know the source of an e-mail, don’t click on it, and if possible, use an email tracker. If you have any software that needs updating, don’t hesitate to do so, as older versions are more vulnerable to attacks,” he said.

48-hour halt

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Manpower has announced that their online services are active again. The Ministry had previously halted all services for 48 hours until Monday morning, and features, such as the complaints system, work leave notices, commercial electronic licence requests, work permit requests and commercial and private electronic licence requests were unavailable.

Many other government ministries have disabled their electronic services, such as emails, websites and internet networks, as precautionary measures to the virus and to install updates. The websites of Ministry of Higher Education and the SQU Hospital remained inaccessible on Monday.

Source: Timesofoman