City College’s Wi-Fi network and campus websites have been restored, and the San Diego Community College District’s blackout of all its networks has ended after a cyberattack, according to district officials.

As part of a phased effort to bring the systems back online that began at City on May 13, the campus was alerted it would start to see Wi-Fi and internet access “re-enabled” midday.

A similar alert stating “internet access, Wi‑Fi connectivity, and district file server access is re-enabled Districtwide” was sent Thursday morning, with a notification that the sdccd.edu website was restored sent Saturday morning.

The updates came from Jared Burns, the district’s vice chancellor of people, culture and technology services, who sent faculty and staff multiple emails on the progress of the district’s IT specialists and detailed their commitment to securing the network.

“We recognize how critical these services are to your work and to serving our students,” Burns wrote in an email on May 13. “ITS remains fully engaged in completing restoration Districtwide with urgency while maintaining the highest standards of security and system reliability.

“You should now be able to: access the internet, connect to Wi-Fi and access district file servers. While these services have been re-enabled, we remain in an active monitoring and stabilization phase. As usage increases:

• ITS will continue to closely monitor performance and security
• Adjustments may be necessary to maintain system stability and integrity
• Some intermittent disruptions or refinements may occur as we optimize the environment
• LogMeIn and View users can resume normal access

This deliberate approach supports that restored services remain secure, reliable, and sustainable. Thank you for your continued patience, flexibility, and partnership.”

All internet connections, including Wi-Fi, and access to the websites and networks for all of the SDCCD campuses had been down since May 4, when the district took its network offline after battling a cyberattack.

“Our district has been expecting cyberattacks since Saturday,” SDCCD Chancellor Greg Smith said in a statement on May 4. “Given the scope and sophistication of the threats, we have disabled our network while we assess the situation and ensure there are no lingering threats before we fully restore our network.”

During the nearly 10-day outage that all but halted online study, City provided Wi-Fi hotspots throughout campus to allow for regular classes to continue.

City College President Ricky Shabazz delivered a message of thanks to the District’s IT team for their dedicated work in the nights before the systems came back online.

“(I) want to start by thanking our District’s IT team, who have been spending the last eight or nine days, nearly two weekends, working to keep our students’ information systems safe and secure,” Shabazz said in a social media post on May 11.

One of those IT specialists, Alfredo Torres, was recently working on a call box at City College in an unrelated capacity, and said the past few days had been a lot of work. 

“Over 5,500 computers have been brought back online and scanned for malware,” Torres said. “So far, no issues have been detected.”

Shabazz reminded students and faculty that malicious attacks like this are serious and to remain on alert for random messages and to be mindful of clicking on suspicious links. 

During the District network outage, a separate attack on Instructure by hacking group ShinyHunters affected nearly 9,000 schools that use Canvas as their main instructional platform. 

In an email to City Times Media regarding the security incident, Brian Watkins, senior communication director at Instructure, confirmed the breach was related to its Free-For-Teachers accounts. 

“Out of an abundance of caution, we immediately took Canvas offline to contain access and further investigate,” Watkins said in an email. “This gives us the confidence to restore access to Canvas, which is now fully back online and available for use. We regret the inconvenience and concern this may have caused.”

Additional updates can be found at Instructure’s Trust Center website. The incident spurred an apology from CEO Steve Daly, who said some information like usernames, email addresses, course names, enrollment information and messages may have been compromised.

With the system back up and access for City College restored, students brace for the final weeks of the semester before celebrating the graduation of the 2026 cohort on May 21.

The spring 2026 semester ends on June 1.

This story was edited by Rosemary Archer.