RMIT cancels classes after IT outage

RMIT University was forced to cancel a small number of online and in-person classes on Friday after experiencing an IT outage.

In a statement issued late on Friday, the university said it was working to resolve the issues, which happened outside of the main university semester.

iTnews understands the outage began on Thursday afternoon and was the result of a phishing scam.

RMIT said that based on independently verified analysis, there was currently no evidence to suggest any data breach had occurred.

“RMIT’s IT services team is working to resolve some issues that have impacted access to some of the University’s supported applications and systems,” it said.

“To enable essential remediation works to progress as quickly as possible, online and in-person classes have been cancelled and our campuses are closed today

“The small cohort of students who were scheduled to have face-to-face classes have been contacted directly.

“These measures will allow us to resolve the issues as quickly as possible and ensure we are providing students with access to all the systems they need for the right learning experience.”

Vocational education, urban school and flight school classes, as well as higher degree research activities, are now expected to resume on Monday.

RMIT said staff were still able to work remotely, with access to critical systems including Office 365 and Cavas unaffected.

The majority of RMIT students will start the first 2021 semester on March 1.