No ransoms were paid to hackers during the cyberattacks that hit the University of Mississippi Medical Center or Institutes of Higher Learning this year, officials confirmed to Mississippi Today.
“No state taxpayer dollars were used” to pay the perpetrators of either attack, said Sen. Nicole Boyd, a Republican from Oxford and the chair of the Senate Universities and Colleges Committee.
A cyberattack struck the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning offices on Sep. 7, temporarily rendering the Mississippi Office of Student Financial Aid unable to process student applications and payments. IHL officials are working with federal law enforcement and cybersecurity professionals to determine what happened and whether confidential or sensitive data was accessed or compromised.