University of St. Thomas in Texas takes systems offline after cyberattack

The University of St. Thomas took several systems offline on Tuesday, August 12, 2025, after an unauthorized party attempted to access campus servers, according to the Houston Chronicle. Students were unable to reach the website, login portal, course schedules, and financial aid tools while IT quarantined affected servers “out of an abundance of caution.” Officials said there has been no indication of a data breach and that restoration work has continued. The private Catholic university is in Houston, Texas, where fall classes began Monday, August 18.

As of Tuesday, August 19, the university’s main website appeared intermittently unreachable, and access issues persisted, while a university Facebook post the same day highlighted a new San José Clinic partnership and did not mention outages. The incident adds to mounting cyber risks across higher education; in May, a Columbia University breach affected about 870,000 people and exposed sensitive personal and financial data, underscoring sectorwide vulnerability. UST reported about 4,350 students in fall 2024; officials continue investigating and restoring services.