The spectre of a cyber attack such as was experienced recently by Laurentian University weighs heavily on Collège Boréal president Daniel Giroux.
It’s “one of the things that keeps you up at night,” he said.
Besides the situation at Laurentian, a cyber attack also recently affected the University of Winnipeg. There have also been cyber attacks at other large institutions in the past six months, including the cities of Hamilton and Huntsville, five southwestern Ontario hospitals and the Toronto Public Library. NOSM U was also hit with a cyber attack in May 2023.
“It is a concern,” said Giroux. “I think it's not just post-secondary institutions, it's every institution, whether private or public, the threat of cybersecurity, cyber attacks is definitely there.”
The only thing large organizations can do is make sure their training and software upgrades are up to par to mitigate the threats of cyber attacks.
“It's making sure that you do the proper training, you invest properly, you maintain, and you always make sure they have the most up-to-date equipment and technology to continue to reduce those risks,” he said. “And as you know, the technology changes so quickly that you have to keep up with it.”
Giroux said one of the things Boréal does with its employees is sending “phishing” emails to see if they open them.
“If they do, there’s a training session and we work with those employees, and that you know what, this could have put this in danger,” he said. “I think training is a key component to this is making sure that everybody is aware that their risk is there. And, you know, if you hesitate, it's a good thing. If you question it, it's a good thing.”
Given the situation at Laurentian this winter, Boréal is hoping to learn from the university’s experience, the president said..
“We've done that in the past, learning from scenarios. What went wrong? And what did they do that went right? So how did they resolve it? And what could they have done to minimize that risk?” Giroux said. “There's always a threat. But learning from those from experience, absolutely. It's always, always important.”
Laurentian also received assistance where necessary during the aftermath of the cyber attack from both Boréal and Cambrian College.
“Anytime we can help out a partner, that's absolutely critical,” said Giroux. “So we had part of our team help out.”
Sudbury.com also reached out to Cambrian College for comment on Laurentian’s recent cyber attack, but the college declined our interview request, saying it prefers to fly under the radar on the issue to avoid becoming a target for hackers.
Laurentian: ‘Getting close to business as usual’
Meanwhile, Laurentian said most, if not all of its IT systems are back in operation following the Feb. 18 cyber attack that threw its winter semester into chaos. The exception is some specialty systems and specific software applications.
At one point, the cyber attack had brought down its teaching software, D2L, its on-campus wifi and its website, among other systems.
“Things are, again, for the moment, working well, and networks are all up, students are in class, online, writing exams,” provost Brenda Brouwer said in an interview with Sudbury.com last week. “So it's getting close to business as usual.”
Asked if Laurentian knows the specifics of the cyber attack at this point, Brouwer said “not at this point. Those investigations are ongoing, and we have consultants that are very much engaged and looking into those things.”
If there’s a silver lining to this whole situation, it’s that Laurentian is now better prepared to fend off future cyber attacks, she said.
“One of the first things is ensuring that our systems are protected from outside access, and that there would be signals sent if we are being attacked, people trying to weasel their way in, so to speak,” Brouwer said.
Laurentian is also now able to give advice to other post-secondary institutions who may experience cyber attacks.
“So there's a lot of learning and sharing of experience,” she said. “I think that collectively is ultimately going to result in better best practices.
“These incidents are happening more and more. As you know, there's almost not a week goes by that you're not seeing that somebody was under a cyber attack. So you really want to be working together and supporting one another to protect our systems and the privacy of those who utilize our systems.”
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s assistant editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.
