University of Winnipeg hit by cyberattack, data breach
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The University of Winnipeg in Canada has been hit by a cyberattack and theft of sensitive information pertaining to both current and former students and employees. The university is housing more than 18,000 students and employing around 800 staff members.
The university detected the incident on March 25th, and immediately shut down various services. While the exact nature of the cyber incident remains under investigation, it is believed that the data theft occurred in the week leading up to March 24.
Personal information compromised in the attack includes:
For employees
- names,
- social insurance numbers,
- dates of birth,
- street addresses,
- phone numbers,
- compensation information of all employees since 2003.
- bank account information of employees since 2015,
For students who have been enrolled at the university since 2018, the exposed data includes
- names,
- programs of study,
- street addresses,
- student numbers,
- dates of birth,
- social insurance numbers
- fee and tuition amounts,
- gender information,
- marital status.
This breach has impacted a large portion of the university community, at least 5,000 individuals, but the number is not confirmed. The nature of the attack is not disclosed.
The University of Winnipeg is offering two years of credit monitoring services to those affected, encouraging them to take advantage of the service, which includes insurance provisions against fraud.
