London Southbank students unable to access online learning for a full month

Poor Southbank students couldn’t even get onto Moodle


Students at a London university have been unable to access online learning for nearly a month, including the entire Christmas break period, due to a “cyber incident”.

London Southbank University students have been unable to access Moodle and their student hub MyLSBU since the 13th December.

They cannot access recorded lectures, case studies and academic journals, amongst other resources. University-wide institutional logins are also not working.

Southbank students are concerned as to how they will be able to complete the next semester’s teaching as all learning has been moved online. The incident has hugely impacted their ability to complete assessments and deadlines which are due in the coming semester. They are also worried about the long term effects of not being able to effectively study for over a month.

LSBU students have started a petition calling for a no detriment policy following on from the cyber attack as they feel they have been greatly impacted by the fallout. You can sign the petition here. 

A Southbank student told The Tab: “Moodle has been down since the 12th December and there are no signs of it getting up and running. The cyber attack is still going on and they’ve warned us about malicious emails and having to change our passwords. It has been a great struggle for all students.”

A spokesperson from London Southbank University said: “Since 13th December 2020, we have been dealing with a malicious cyber-incident on our IT systems. The cyber experts we are working with have confirmed their belief that this was an attack on LSBU by sophisticated cybercriminals, seeking to disrupt our institution.

“We acted early, informing the relevant authorities and law enforcement, and are working with them as part of our investigation. We are not aware of any evidence that the confidentiality of staff or student data has been affected.

“Our staff have worked hard to provide support to students while we work to restore access to all online services. That support includes sending learning materials to our students via alternative channels, extending deadlines and sending regular updates about online services. We have also enhanced our hardship funding provision to further support students with their remote learning and wellbeing.

“We are working to restore full access for students as quickly as possible and are providing updates about extended deadlines and other measures to support them.”