On Friday, the university advised students that Canvas, the timetable and work integrated learning InPlace system were all down

There was media speculation that the university had closed the cyber gates to defend against a phishing attack. But management did not identify the issue, telling students IT was on to it, “working to resolve some issues that have impacted access.” On-campus classes for the not-many students meant to attend (semester has not started) were cancelled as well.

The university also wanted it known that “from the analysis undertaken to date, which has been independently validated, there is currently no evidence to suggest any data breaches as a result of these issues.”

“So, what was the problem?” CMM asked. “Not telling,” was CMM’s interpretation of RMIT’s reply, which consisted of a link to the university’s statement that there was no security breach.

Friday afternoon all appeared was well, with students reporting systems were back up. “If it all doesn’t work, leave it and try again in a couple hours. That’s standard advice for anything at RMIT,” as one student put it on chat-site. But not everything was ok, Saturday afternoon RMIT was apologising to students for the enrolment-server for first semester being down.