Many of Karlstad University's web services will begin to be brought back online on Thursday morning following a security update. However, it may take some time before all tools are fully available.
– There is a certain degree of complexity involved, as we need to ensure that the update has been fully implemented across the services before we can reconnect them, says Mats Möller, IT Director at Karlstad University.
He explains that, alongside the university’s own efforts, Sunet is also working to restore functionality in its services, including Sunet Play, to which Kau Play is connected. This has affected students in particular.
– Students had access yesterday to My Kau and the Canvas learning platform via links on our temporary homepage. However, because Sunet was also affected by the security vulnerability, students did not have access to recorded lectures and other material on Kau Play, says Mats Möller.
– Sunet is working to restore its services, and we at Karlstad University are doing the same. However, a large number of services need to be updated, so they will be brought back online gradually throughout the day.
On Wednesday, Karlstad University and several other higher education institutions shut down a number of their web services as a security precaution. This included the homepage of kau.se, which was replaced with a temporary page containing links to essential tools for students.
The security vulnerability, found in the programming language PHP, led public-sector organisations around the world to take their websites offline. A security patch became available late on Wednesday afternoon and is now being installed progressively, allowing websites and services to be reopened in stages.
