Updated: Wednesday, July 6, 2022
College of the Desert has confirmed to News Channel 3 that it is working to mitigate the impacts of what administrators describe as “computer network disruption”, according to public information officer Nicholas Robles.
A federal investigation is currently underway. COD administrators say they contacted the FBI as soon as they discovered something was wrong on July 5.
“Right now we are cooperating with federal law enforcement and they are investigating,” Robles said.
As of Wednesday, COD was working to restore all staff and student email accounts, phone lines and school servers that were still not working.
Jennifer Franco of News Channel 3 asked if information about students could have been compromised.
“I don’t want to speculate on what happened because we are still investigating,” Robles said.
In 2020, the COD website suffered a malware attack, removing access to online services and emails.
News Channel 3’s Jennifer Franco asked school officials if the outage was also a malicious attack, but the college would not comment on that issue and said the FBI investigation was still ongoing.
Jennifer Franco spoke with students on campus to see how it affects their days.
“The canvas was still working happily, so we can still work,” said COD student Zachary Contreras. “Right now we’re just out of class so we don’t have internet so that’s a bit of a problem,” he added.
Another student said she had problems reaching the teachers.
“Yesterday I tried to email my teacher to tell him I wasn’t going to be able to attend class, and apparently he never got the email,” Darinka Rivera said. , a COD student.
COD officials said internal and third-party IT teams are working to restore the school’s systems, but there’s currently no specific timeline for when that will happen.
For updates, visit www.CODnews.org
Tuesday, July 5, 2022
A computer outage today affected student and staff access to College of the Desert’s various online services.
The cause of the outage was unclear, but college officials said access was restored late Tuesday morning to Canvas, Adobe and Microsoft Teams services.
While teams work to restore access, the school has set up a temporary website – www.CODnews.org – to provide updates and access to resources available for student services, such as as advice and summer courses.
Desert College staff and outside experts are working today, July 5, 2022, to restore online services and campus phone lines after a computer network outage. More information: https://t.co/hcf0k3Ao9T.
— College of the Desert (@CollegeofDesert) July 5, 2022
“While College systems are down, students will not be removed from classes due to non-payment of fees. Classes are not canceled or impacted. Staff continue to serve students through various alternative means,” reads a press release from COD.
● Students can still reach the counseling office using “Cranium Café” with the link https://collegeofthedesert.craniumcafe.com/.
● Summer school resources are available through Canvas with the link https://mycodus.sharepoint.com.
● Zoom classes are accessible through students’ Canvas accounts.
School officials also said COD’s text alert system will continue to be used to provide updates and information to all faculty, staff and students at daily intervals and as needed. as information becomes available.
Efforts continue to restore access to other systems and programs.
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