College of Medicine systems compromised

Dear UIC community,

UIC and College of Medicine IT staff recently identified unauthorized activity within portions of the College of Medicine network. We immediately activated our incident response protocols and cybersecurity experts to investigate, contain the issue and determine what information may have been compromised.

As a result of the ransomware attack, some College of Medicine systems were temporarily unavailable. However, all affected systems have since been restored. Importantly, the main UIC network was not affected, and there was no impact on patient care delivery at UI Health.

While our forensic investigation is ongoing, we have determined that the unauthorized actors obtained some data located on College of Medicine servers. Our cybersecurity experts are combing through the data to determine if any personal, research or academic information has been compromised. We appreciate your patience as we work to determine the extent of the data breach. Upon completion, we will notify all impacted individuals. Remediation is a slow, methodical and exacting process that does not occur overnight.

We have implemented additional security controls to reduce future risk. The ransomware attack was reported to the appropriate law enforcement agencies, and the university has coordinated with them since the incident was discovered.

We want to express our deep gratitude for your understanding, patience and cooperation during this challenging time. Your resilience and support play a significant role in our collective ability to overcome this situation.

If you have questions, please contact Information Technology at [email protected].

Sincerely,

Dr. Enrico Benedetti
Interim G. Stephen Irwin Executive Dean 
Warren H. Cole Chair in Surgery 

Matt Riley
Chief Information Officer

Shefali Mookencherry
Chief Information Security and Privacy Officer

For more information, please contact:
Technology Solutions
[email protected]