HAMLET — Many functions at Richmond Community College were expected to be back in service Friday following a “cyber disruption” earlier in the week.
“The College will be implementing new security protocols to help prevent this type of network disruption from occurring in the future,” Sheri Dunn-Ramsay, associate vice president for Marketing and Strategic Planning, said in an email late Thursday. “The College will be training employees on these new security measures starting next week.”
Dunn Ramsay reiterated that “all student and employee personal data remains secure.”
She added that will be switching from its summer to regular semester hours next week: Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Friday from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
“Registration is still ongoing for fall classes, so we look forward to welcoming new and current students on Aug. 15,” she said.
College officials announced Monday that the IT Department detected “a serious cyber disruption caused by unknown outside parties” on the server infrastructure.
The college is working with state and federal authorities, including the FBI, to investigate the source of the disruption.
Orange County has suffered three ransomware attacks in six years, according to media reports, the most recent being in March. The city of Greenville’s network was infected with a virus in April. Several other local government, public safety, medical and school networks have been attacked in North Carolina in recent years.
Mecklenburg County was hit with ransomware attacks in both 2017 and 2018.
