A suspected cyber incident disrupted teaching at New Mexico’s Institute of American Indian Arts, where network problems beginning Oct. 2 left students without essential digital tools and prompted an emergency campus closure.
The Santa Fe school has not confirmed a cyberattack. President Shelly Lowe told the Santa Fe New Mexican that the cause remained uncertain.
An allegation of malware had surfaced publicly by Oct. 8, when Johnny Teather wrote on Facebook that IAIA had suffered an attack the previous week and that problems were continuing. Teather did not respond to a request for comment. DysruptionHub has not established his affiliation with the school or independently confirmed his account.
With midterms approaching, staff tried to continue with pen and paper before the school issued an emergency closure notice Oct. 8, the newspaper reported. Wi-Fi, printers, documents and the Canvas learning platform were unavailable.
“It literally knocked us out of our network,” Lowe told the newspaper.
Students were encouraged to return home. Some stayed and attended studio classes requiring no electronics, in what Lowe described as an “impromptu fall break that we weren’t prepared for.”
Recovery required restoring a late-September network backup, raising the possibility of lost files, Lowe said. Actual file loss and data theft have not been confirmed.
IAIA is an arts school serving Native and non-Native students, with Native American and Alaska Native cultural expression central to its mission. Founded in 1962, it offers programs including studio arts, creative writing, performing arts and museum studies.
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IAIA staff and technology contractor Ardham Technologies were investigating. Lowe hoped computers would be working again Friday afternoon, but completed restoration and a return to normal classes have not been confirmed.
The outage comes amid other disruptions in higher education. Earlier this month, ransomware temporarily disabled systems at the University of Illinois Chicago’s College of Medicine, where attackers also stole information. UIC said its affected systems were restored. No ransomware finding has been established at IAIA.
IAIA did not respond to a request for comment. Whether the outage involved unauthorized access remains unresolved.
