SAN ANTONIO – University of Texas at San Antonio students are having mixed reactions after what the university is calling an attempted cybersecurity incident that led leaders to delay the start of class.
On Wednesday, students reported they do not have access to campus resources and online services. UTSA officials said there was an “attempted unauthorized activity of technology systems” and took services offline out of an abundance of caution.
Officials also said they do not believe any information was accessed or stolen.
Some students said they were not surprised. They remember a similar disruption involving Canvas during finals in May that affected students at public schools and universities across the state.
For freshmen Santiago Barron and Sean Infante, it marks a strange way to start their college experience.
“I think it’s shocking how it happens my first semester, my first day of school,” Barron said.
Infante said he had hoped to browse student organizations and activities but could not access the websites.
“There’s nothing I can do because all the websites are down,” he said. “So it’s kind of annoying.”
Barron said other in-person activities allowed them to explore campus extracurriculars.
Meanwhile, students like sophomore Christian Ruszkiewicz said they were a little relieved to receive the notification, adding that it gives students some extra time before school starts.
“I was kind of happy because I don’t have the stuff prepared,” he said. “It is what it is.”
Maria Wence, a UTSA senior and KSAT intern, showed us how she was locked out of her accounts.
“Canvas is the only way to get to my classes, and I just can’t,” Wence said. “Even if you go to the One Stop website and you try to go into your personal information, it’ll do the exact same thing, just not let you in.”
For Infante, the situation is especially ironic as he is majoring in cybersecurity. According to the university website, UTSA has one of the top programs in the nation.
“The fact that it’s only UTSA that it happened to is pretty weird,” he said. “But it’s good that they took everything down so none of our information gets stolen.”
KSAT reached out to a spokesperson with the university to learn what systems were impacted and how it affects students, but KSAT was referred to UTSA’s news link.
The link shares that schedules for the school year — including fall break and the end of the semester — remain the same, but some deadlines for tuition have been delayed.
More coverage of this story on KSAT: