San Diego Miramar College said Monday that it contained a cyberattack on its network, but users could face intermittent disruptions as systems and websites were restored.
The disruption could affect students, employees and applicants who rely on campus websites and district portals for email, Canvas, class schedules, registration and other services. Miramar is a public community college in San Diego and part of the San Diego Community College District.
The college said in a public notice Monday morning that its IT team “recently identified and stopped a cyberattack” on its network. The college said the threat had been contained and staff were “actively working to bring all systems and websites back online safely.”
Miramar said users could experience intermittent service disruptions Monday while the IT team completed scans. The notice did not say which systems were affected, how long the outage had lasted or when full service would be restored.
The college’s main website was unavailable Monday afternoon after Miramar warned that systems and websites could see intermittent disruptions during recovery. Miramar has not said whether the outage was caused by containment work, restoration steps or the cyberattack itself.
The college’s statement confirms a cyberattack but does not identify the attack type. Officials have not publicly confirmed ransomware, data theft, a ransom demand or a threat actor.
The outage came during active exploitation of a critical vulnerability in cPanel & WHM, software used to manage web-hosting servers. CISA added the flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog April 30 and directed federal agencies to apply mitigations by May 3, while cPanel issued security update guidance. Guam officials also ordered a governmentwide assessment Saturday after multiple government websites were hacked following what officials described as a global internet security flaw. Miramar has not said whether cPanel, WHM, a hosting provider or any third-party web platform was involved, and no public source has linked the Guam incident to Miramar.
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No public ransomware claim, breach notice, law enforcement statement or local news report adding details about the Miramar incident was found in searches Monday. The absence of a public claim does not rule out ransomware or data exposure, but those details remain unconfirmed.
San Diego Miramar College is in the Mira Mesa area of San Diego and offers more than 150 degrees and certificates for transfer, career training and workforce advancement, according to its website.
The incident follows other cyber disruptions at community colleges. Community College of Beaver County in Pennsylvania said in March that a cybersecurity incident encrypted some college data and was reported to federal law enforcement and regulators, while Southwest Tennessee Community College said a July 2024 incident that began as a suspected server problem was later confirmed as ransomware that disrupted campus computer systems. No public source has linked those incidents to Miramar.
Miramar said the threat was contained and restoration work was underway, but the affected systems, data exposure status, attack type and full recovery timeline remained unclear Monday.
