My university got hit by a cyberattack

Right after Christmas, my university in Ecuador got hit by a cyberattack. The attack happened on the last day we could upload our grades. The impact of this attack has been very large.

First of all, we had to postpone the start of the semester by a week, as the IT infrastructure was not up and running yet.

Services came back bit by bit. As I returned from my Christmas break, my computer had to be swiped and given the green light. Afterwards, I was without office (wired) internet for about a week. Wifi took longer to get back.

By the beginning of the semester, the external website we use for teaching (Banner, D2L) were connected back to the server again. But internal platforms (for invoicing, and the intranet with all important documents) took much longer and are not up and running yet at the time of writing. It took until three weeks into the semester for the printers to get hooked up back to the net.

All in all: the impact of the attack was very large on our university. The only other time the start of the semester was postponed by a week was in May 2020 when we all had to switch to blended flexible teaching for the summer semester, and the admins decided to give us an extra week between the semesters to convert our material.

What would happen at your university if the IT infrastructure would go down?