With the internal systems down and no other way to access information of students or faculty to communicate, staff are still figuring out the cause of the error.
On April 11, A text message alert coming from LBCC’s notifications was sent at around 1:45 p.m. informing faculty and students that they are experiencing technology problems due to malware.
From the text message, it said that there are no indication that data has been compromised at this time and LBCC is working to fix the problem as soon as possible.
Even after two days, the problem just seems to be a hindrance to all who need the system.
Financial Aid cannot check student’s files, transactions are not being made, and teachers are having trouble dealing with classes that needed to be updated.
Superintendent-President Reagan F. Romali released a statement through Public Relations Director Stacey Toda via email:
“Some of LBCC’s technology systems are currently down including our LBCC.edu faculty and staff email, the Student Viking System, Payroll, and online schedule. However, things are still business as usual at LBCC – classes are still being held as scheduled. This has been a small bump in our normal day, but our LBCC staff has been finding many ways to work around this while our Instructional and Information Technology Services are working extremely hard to bring things back online.”
There has been speculations, but Toda had mentioned in the email “it was not hacking.”
A professor who requested not to provide his name confirmed that his computer system was completely wiped and lost his files, including the ones in his USB connected on his computer.
Students have also been having trouble with navigating their student Moodles the day before and had some homework missing because of the shutdown. Students cant also make transaction involving Admissions and Records, and are also unable to provide students who will be signing up for summer classes soon.
On the phone with Toda, she spoke that the tech-services are working hard to get things up and running.
Toda provided an example that some staff maybe receiving no direct deposit but are getting taken care of as there are also people in the department who are processing them to provide paper checks.
“It’s not convenient,” said Toda. “But we do have staff who are fixing the problem and staff who are working to find solutions.”
Board of Trustee Douglas W. Otto commented over the phone, “From my understanding, it’s been a ransom, we (the school) suspect we’ve been hacked. But we have no ransom requests.”
Otto later added that no one had asked them for money.
Since Monday April 9, systems are down from the school’s Oracle system to teacher’s student files.
Three different answers caused confusion and there is still no exact answer as to why it is happening.
One thing is certain, that there is no exact date or time when the system will be fixed, as for now, there is worry looming about situations on how the campus will function in the middle of upcoming events.
(updated April 11, 4:57pm)