MRU says employee, student data compromised in cyberattack

Mount Royal University says drives containing employee, student and departmental data were compromised in a cyberattack last month.

On June 18, the Calgary university advised its community it was responding to a cyber breach that affected access to certain university systems and services.

In a media statement on Tuesday, the university said its investigation showed data within certain folders of the university’s “H drive” was accessed and taken by an unauthorized actor.

The actor then deleted the drive data to impede recovery efforts, the statement added.

According to the university, its H drive is a file storage system used by individual employees and students.

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The university says its analysis showed some specific folders were impacted rather than the whole drive, and impacted individuals will be notified within the coming week.

The university says as its investigation continues it will provide all current employees and individuals employed within the past five years with two years of credit monitoring and identity theft protection services.

The university added the threat actor also deleted its “J drive,” which contained departmental data.

It says there is no evidence the data was accessed or copied before it was deleted.

The university is trying to recover the deleted data but says a full recovery might not be possible.

More updates will be provided when they become available.

The attack has also been reported to the Alberta Information and Privacy Commissioner and to law enforcement agencies.

The university has also created a frequently asked questions resource about the incident, which can be accessed at https://emergency.mtroyal.ca/frequently-asked-questions.