The Mississippi Office of Student Financial Aid temporarily cannot process applications or payments after a cyberattack struck the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning system on Monday, agency spokesman John Sewell said Thursday.
Sewell said the student financial aid office was hit the hardest but did not provide details on the broader impact. He said the Mississippi Aid Application dashboard, or MAAPP, remains available because it operates separately from IHL’s affected system.
There have been no reports that the attack affected individual colleges or universities, Sewell said. IHL officials are working with federal law enforcement and cybersecurity professionals to determine what happened and whether confidential or sensitive data were accessed, according to Sewell and a news release from IHL.
Sewell declined to provide additional details about the nature of the attack or why the agency announced the incident days later, he said.
The incident follows other cybersecurity disruptions in the state this year. Previous news reports said a May attack by the criminal extortion group ShinyHunters affected Canvas, a learning management system used by Mississippi State University. Previous reports also said a Feb. 19 attack on the University of Mississippi Medical Center forced the cancellation of appointments and elective surgeries for nine days, delayed roughly 650 surgeries and was later claimed by the ransomware group Medusa.
Jon Ross Myers is the executive editor and publisher of the Mississippi News Network, Mississippi's largest digital only media company. He can be reached at editor@tippahnews.com
