Bristol Community College reveals they were the victim of a criminal cyberattack

A local college has been experiencing issues with their network and they now know the cause.

According to information released by the school on Friday, Bristol Community College now knows they were the victim of a criminal cyberattack, an attempt by hackers to damage the college’s computer network.

The college has been having technology issues for over a week and has been thankful of the community’s patience.

“This has been a very difficult time for the college, and we are grateful for your understanding. We understand that this causes significant disruptions for our students, faculty and staff as we head into the Spring semester in a few short weeks. Please know that we are working to minimize the impact of this disruption on our student’s progress and success. We hope to have our email and OneDrive (Office 365) up soon.”

Winter classes are still in session, and they continue to move forward with plans for the Spring semester.

College services, including Enrollment Center, Student Accounts, Financial Aid and more, are available by phone or walk-in during this time. However, given the limited access to college information systems, services may be limited.

Bristol Community College recently discovered unauthorized access to its network on or around December 23, 2022. The college says that they immediately launched an investigation, in consultation with cybersecurity professionals who regularly investigate and analyze these types of incidents around the country, to determine the extent of any compromise to the information on its network. The incident involved ransomware encryption.

At this time, Bristol Community College has no forensic evidence that this incident resulted in the unauthorized access to, or acquisition of, personal information, as defined under applicable state data breach notification laws, or non-directory personally identifiable information, as defined under FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act). However, this is a primary focus of the investigation. In the event that the investigation determines that personal information was compromised, individuals will be contacted directly with guidance and next steps.

The college states that in 2021, more than 4,100 publicly disclosed data breaches occurred, resulting in 22 billion records being exposed. In fact, Education and research institutions were targeted by an average of 1,065 cyberattacks per week last year—a 75% increase from 2020.