St Andrews University reassures students and staff after IT security breach

St Andrews University has offered assurances that the personal data of students and staff was not compromised when one of its computer systems suffered a “security issue”.

Rumours have been circulating the university was targeted by hackers.

But a St Andrews spokesman said he was not able to confirm this, adding that police had not been involved.

“The university recently dealt with a security issue affecting a single server used to store data related to astronomy research in one of our schools,” he said.

“The server does not hold any personal data.

“Following forensic investigation of the server and other network services, there is no evidence that any of the server contents or the research to which it relates have been compromised.

“As good practice, our schools and units were informed of the security issue and staff were asked to change their passwords as a precaution.”