The University of Texas at San Antonio, which serves 40,000 students across six campuses, said its IT team identified threat activity on its academic campus over the weekend and took some systems, including phones, offline in response.
Classes for many students begin on Wednesday, and the disruptions threaten to snarl systems people use to sign up for courses and submit payments for services.
Michael Schnabel, the organization’s chief technology officer, said in a statement that the threat activity was detected at the edge of the university’s network and was contained before it reached “core systems and University Technology Solutions.” The university did not respond to questions about what was impacted.
Cybercriminals have repeatedly targeted universities at the beginning and end of school years in an effort to force organizations to pay exorbitant ransoms. In May, universities across the U.S. were forced to delay final exams following a damaging cyberattack on a critical education software provider.