MUN president Neil Bose told CBC News on Wednesday that the hack on December 29 encrypted Grenfell's servers' data and prevented users from accessing it. The attack caused a week-long delay in classes.
An investigation by the university’s technology and external teams, in collaboration with the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security revealed that no data was compromised in the attack.
"The affected damage was no one could access anything, and none of the data was accessible to us," Bose said Wednesday. "As soon as it was identified that it was a cyberattack and that data was unavailable … we then took direction from the cybersecurity experts to take us through how to respond, what we should do and so on and so forth. And it's been pretty intense since then, actually."
In an emailed statement, the university mentions that they cannot give details regarding the ransom, as this could impact the investigation.
Following this MUN officials did not comment regarding the issue for a few days. On Wednesday, Bose noted that the university did not want to compromise any information in the initial days of the investigation.
Before MUN agreed to an interview, Sheldon Handcock, an information technology expert located in Gander, spoke to CBC News and said that the university's initial response is standard procedure among affected parties as they investigate attacks and attempt to shore up possible flaws.
When a ransomware attack hit the province's healthcare system in 2021, then-health minister John Haggie stated that discussing the attack could jeopardize the investigation, the government of Newfoundland and Labrador took a similar stance.
Bose further informs that the affected Grenfell sever is slowly improving and some of its components are gradually returning online. He stated that email systems are operational, but it is taking longer than expected to have Internet connectivity restored in some laboratories.
"The new system at Grenfell will look somewhat different from the old system in some ways. It's not just a question of, you know, switching the switch and going back to what it was, partly because we have to take the advice of our cybersecurity experts to make sure that what we have going forward is … even more strong than it was," he added. "We have been planning a process of consolidation of [the three] networks, partly to improve the security aspects of our outreach."