For months now, Virginia Wesleyan University has been dealing with network issues related to the gray hat cyber attack back in December. Since the initial attack, a cyber security team has been on contract and has nearly fully restored our system in terms of student useability.
Vice President of Student Affairs, Keith Moore, stated that while everything is nearly fixed there are a few more “minor things” that still need to be repaired.
For one there are still issues in trying to print on Paper Cut from an Apple computer. Additionally, Moore said that the main thing that is still being worked on is the student “My Beacon” portal.
“It was announced by the president in his Nota this past Monday, that we have identified a product, a good solution … it will be a contemporary piece of software that really has the end user in mind,” Moore said.
Moore further shared that the new software will present the information more clearly and will be easier to understand. It will also have improved mobile application, which is something that the university hasn’t really had in the past. “That’s really the biggest piece,” Moore said.
Moore also said that the cyber security firm has nearly finished and is “wrapping up the rest of their investigation and forensic analysis to provide us a report with findings and we get to review those to see how we can improve things.”
With the looming threat of the coronavirus to our safety on campus, there has been speculation following an email sent out to the campus community by Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dr. Maynard Schaus, that the university may be forced to close. While Moore said that at this point he is unable to gauge the likelihood that the university will close due to the virus, but that our network and portal are now functioning well enough to facilitate the completion of spring semester online if need be.
Dalton Powers
dmpowers@vwu.edu
