This is a developing story. Stay with City Times Media for more updates.
The disruptions from an ongoing cyberattack continue to affect San Diego City College and the entire San Diego Community College District, entering its second day of both virtual and physical closures.
At 6:14 p.m., SDCCD Chancellor Greg Smith released his latest district-wide email, telling faculty and staff that the network would remain down until Friday afternoon.
“While our IT professionals and vendors have been working nearly continuously since Saturday, our network will need to remain down (on) Wednesday and Thursday. At this time, we expect full restoration will not be possible until Friday afternoon,” Smith said.
“I fully recognize the scope of impact this has on instruction, counseling, libraries, and many student support offices, as well as our administrative offices. The decision to remain offline is a necessity, not merely a precaution.”
Smith also mentioned working to provide food services on campus amid the shutdown.
He also added that, as of now, no data has been breached.
“The positive news in this unfortunate situation continues to be that our security systems worked and our IT professionals prevented our data from being compromised,” Smith said. “I want to acknowledge and thank Antoine Andari, Rose Parnsoonthorn, Kevin Kelly, Justin Janger, Jordan Sage, and George Wildberger for the incredible work they have been doing since Saturday and continue to do to fully restore our systems as quickly as possible.”
Earlier in the day, an email from City College information officer Cesar Gumapas to campus faculty and staff stated that in-person classes will continue, but some services, such as the bookstore and food service, will remain unavailable until further notice.
He added that no student, employee or district data has been compromised.
“The district is leading all communications on this matter,” the email said. “Updates will continue to be shared as they become available.”
City Times Media visited Gumapas’ office for further comment, but he was unavailable for an interview.
City College wasn’t the only victim of a cyber attack last weekend. The company Instructure also faced a large data breach and confirmed ShinyHunters, a criminal hacking network responsible for dozens of system breaches, is responsible.
Canvas, which is owned by Instructure, is an application that all SDCCD schools utilize, with it being the main platform that teachers use for their classes.
Smith responded to that attack in a district-wide email at 12:17 p.m., assuring the community that no information from the district or schools were compromised.
“Infrastructure has reported there is no evidence that personally-identifiable information was compromised,” Smith said in the email. “Specifically, information including passwords, dates of birth, social security numbers, bank and financial data, and other confidential information.”
Although Smith said Infrastructure in the email, he was talking about the company Instructure, according to district’s communication officer Jack Beresford.
Beresford also confirmed that, despite conflicting media reports, the campus registration portal for students who want to register for summer classes are online and functioning properly.
“Students can still access their mySDCCD where they would enroll in their classes,” Beresford said in a phone interview with City Times Media. “Through that same portal, (students are) able to view financial aid and pay for classes and do grades and things like that.”
In its own statement, Instructure confirmed that no passwords, government identifiers or financial information were comprised, but reported that other information of students, staff and faculty were found to be taken.
“While we continue actively investigating, thus far, indications are that the information involved consists of certain identifying information of users at affected institutions, such as names, email addresses, and student ID numbers, as well as messages among users,” Steve Proud, the chief information security officer at Instructure, said in a statement.
Although it has not been made public the list of schools that were affected by the attack, Smith asserts that SDCCD was not involved.
“At this time, there is no direct local impact on our district or need for local action,” Smith said in the email.
The ongoing incident was also spoken about in Tuesday’s College Council meeting, with campus officials detailing their plan of action in the coming week.
President Ricky Shabazz publicly acknowledged the efforts of City College’s IT team, and called the attack a “major effort” to access district data.
According to Shabazz, the cyberattack began over the weekend, but the attackers made sure the effort would be revived once students and staff began logging back into the district’s services come Monday.
“If you know anything about these cyber(attack) attempts, these folks, particularly the most sophisticated of which have the ability to leave efforts embedded in your system, that when you go back online, it’ll re-launch, and that’s what happened on Monday,” he said.
Shabazz also said that the administration has brought in “some of the nation’s foremost leaders” in an attempt to ensure user data was completely safe.
Despite the ongoing challenges with the network, Shabazz made it clear he had no intention to close offices, citing how many students still need a physical location to receive help if virtual access is not immediately available.
“We still have a college to run,” he said.
City Times Media reporters visited offices, classrooms and connected with students, staff and faculty in person and online across the campus to identify the impact of the shutdown. Here’s what they found.
Group chat outreach
A member of the City Times Media staff reached out to a group chat from their multi-camera class to ask if anyone’s school day was affected.
One student shared how their drama professor had to go old school, leaving behind their projector for some old-fashioned whiteboards.
In the audio production class, professor Jodina Scazzola ended her class early. Students were unable to log into the school-provided computers, as they required the shutdown of the wifi to edit.
Another student said those attending professor Christopher Acedo’s editing class were sent home, as they could not use the software provided. One student stayed behind, using their own laptop and hotspot to work on assignments.
– Angela Galan Martinez
Library open
The sanctuary of the school continues to function as the City College librarians support students using work-arounds with USB jump drives and downloads directly to devices.
That included in a Monday session of professor Paul Alexander’s English C1001 class, which had a previously scheduled Library Instruction Session with librarian Marley Rodriguez.
“We experienced training on how to best do research even without access to the database,” said City Times reporter Itzel Martinez, who was in that class.
But some services are unavailable, including desktop computer access and printing.
According to the library page on the City College website, the closest public location for internet use and printing is the San Diego Public Library Central Branch.
“Material checkout is still available and updates will be posted as things come back online,” the site said.
The database Film Platform is currently unavailable for students and faculty. For questions or alternative ways to access these films, please call 619-388-3288.
The library will be open during regular hours, 7:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Librarians are currently providing book checkouts and reference help.
– Yonatan “Yogi” Hernandez
Tutoring centers open
International student and French tutor Maya Scilippa walked into the tutoring center to report to work and was greeted by the supervisor.
The Math and English tutoring centers appeared to be the liveliest parts of campus mid-day Tuesday.
Although the centers are open and actively working with students, the computers are all turned off. All Zoom appointments were canceled since there is no access to the internet.
– Yonatan “Yogi” Hernandez
Mailroom, print room open
City College’s digital print production and mail room is offering support to faculty and staff needing mailing services and copy machines.
Acting supervisor Jair Rodriguez Capilla said the office would close at 4:30 p.m. instead of its usual 7 p.m.
“We do use a lot of internet, so it does affect us,” Capilla said. “We’re still supporting the campus but we’re limited in what we can do.”
– Azriel Castaneda, Nadia Lavin
Counseling Services limited
Counseling Services are limited until further notice, as counselors will not be able to access student portals.
A staffer in the office confirmed City College counselors are available, but only working remotely. They are not accepting any online appointments or walk-ins as the website is down.
Only in-person appointments and walk-ins are available.
The counseling center is located in the A Building and can be reached through their front desk phone, (619)388-3540.
– Yonatan “Yogi” Hernandez
Student Health closed
Student Health Center coordinator Leslie Eaton released a statement by email around 11 a.m. Tuesday notifying the campus that services on would not be available in its office for a second day.
“Due to the ongoing IT challenges, we have had to close the SHC today,” Eaton said. “We have done our best to contact students, but since we cannot access our scheduling or records systems, we may not have been able to effectively contact all scheduled appointments.”
Students can still access mental and physical health-related services through TimelyCare on the app or website.
– Tresean Osgood
Cafeteria, Knight Market dark
City College’s cafeteria and food market is still down, affecting hungry students.
Students looked to vending machines to receive snacks and drinks to consume as a substitute from the food usually served at the cafeteria.
Students are also venturing off campus for food from nearby restaurants and convenience stores surrounding City College.
A classmate of a City Times reporter was the first to tell her the cafeteria was closed a day earlier.
“Now I have to pay like $8 for a meal somewhere else,” they said, “but at least we have the vending machines.”
– Azriel Castaneda
Basic Needs Center closed, events rescheduled
The City College Calfresh enrollment party that was supposed to take place today was postponed due to the shutdown and set to be rescheduled for a later date.
As a member of City Times Media staff headed to the Basic Needs Center on Monday morning after her class ended at 11 a.m., she noticed there was a large number of people walking away from the building.
The disappointment was clearly seen in the students’ faces as they walked away from the pantry, trying to figure out where they were going to head off to next.
A previous classmate informed her that the pantry, along with the Knights Table and Threads & Things, was closed due to the district-wide system shutdown.
A sign on the door confirmed the news, adding the Calfresh and Medical Pop-up support were also canceled and would be rescheduled.
– Itzel Martinez
Multimedia journalists Azriel Castaneda, Angela Galan Martinez, Nadia Lavin and Yonatan “Yogi” Hernandez contributed to this report.
Update, May 5: Story updated to include reporting from College Council meeting and evening update form Chancellor Greg Smith.
The story was edited by Itzel Martinez.
