The University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield has been targeted by cyber attackers, leading to online lessons being cancelled.

In a statement on their website, the university revealed the attack took place late on Wednesday night and that online services would be impacted.

“Shortly before 22:00 last night, the university experienced a cyber-attack which has impacted all of our systems, including those in the Cloud such as Canvas, MS Teams and Zoom,” the statement read.

“Please be reassured that our IT colleagues are working hard to rectify the situation as soon as possible.

“However, as a result, all online teaching will be cancelled today (Thursday, April 15), and we understand that this may impact students being able to submit assignments. We want to reassure our students that no-one will be disadvantaged as a consequence of this.

“Any in-person, on-campus teaching may still continue today, if computer access is not required, but students will have no onsite or remote access to computer facilities in the LRC’s, labs or the University Wi-Fi.

“We apologise for the inconvenience this situation has caused and will continue to keep you updated. You can check the status of all our systems by visiting status.herts.ac.uk.”

Online lessons would also be cancelled on Friday, as would the university's offer holder day on Saturday, which has now been moved to this weekend.

"As a result of the cyber-attack yesterday and the impact this has had on our systems, we have had to postpone our Offer Holder Day this weekend. The event will now take place on Saturday, April 24. Any bookings have been transferred. We're sorry for this late change," a statement read.

"Most live online teaching will resume on Monday, April 19. You can safely access Canvas, Teams and Zoom as normal. Sessions that require remote access to specialist applications may have to be rescheduled.

"There is currently no evidence to suggest that any data has been taken. Our IT colleagues continue to work hard to restore the affected systems."