UWindsor experiencing computer systems outage, 'cybersecurity incident' to blame

The University of Windsor is dealing with a system outage which has shut down many of the school’s online platforms for the past three days.

Staff is working to restore an “unexpected but significant and prolonged” systems outage that started on Monday, according to the University.

The outage has taken down the main UWindsor website, Blackboard Learning Management System, UWinsite Student and the campus Wifi.

In a tweet, the University says “IT is currently working to resolve this issue. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience.”

Even though it's reading week, some students feel left in the dark.

“I’m just frustrated more than anything,” says Matthew Brady, a first-year mechanical engineering student.

He’s been trying to access the site all week but like others, has been unsuccessful.

“I’m trying to study for my chemistry midterm which is next Tuesday, but I can’t access the site, I can’t see all the practice questions (my professor has) posted so I can’t really do anything for that class,” Brady says.

Students have taken to Twitter to voice their displeasure.

“Any update on this?” asks Ryan McLaughlin. “Many of us have assignments due, and important materials we need access to for classes that are finishing this week. We haven't even received an email addressing it.”

Another student Santiago Estrada, tweeted: “Midterm dates should be reconsidered since we haven't been able to access class contents!”

Mike Krech is taking some additional teaching qualifications after recently completing his Bachelor of Education.

“It seems very odd,” says Krech. “It’s every site on the university except for email, you can’t really access anything, so you’re pretty much stuck in the water without a paddle.”

Krech says he understands tech issues happen but doesn’t want it to affect his education.

“I don’t want to be a week into my course and have nothing accomplished,” he says. “It just becomes a headache at that point, right? You don’t want to be behind.”

An update from the university said the school was recently "subject to a cyber security incident" which affected its IT systems. 

"Once we became aware of the incident, we immediately took steps to secure our systems and mitigate the impact to data and operations," the university said in a tweet. 

Meantime, IT support is directing users to a faculty, staff and students support webpage, which can be found at UWindsorsupport.ca.