The university community is still waiting for a full explanation, however, and several professors told the Houston Chronicle that they question the length of time it is taking to get the systems running again. On Aug. 13, university officials said they proactively quarantined the affected servers when an unauthorized party tried to access the system the prior day, though the university had not found any evidence of compromised information.
An FBI Houston spokesperson said the agency does not confirm or deny the presence of active investigations, including those related to cyber attacks such as ransomware. University officials have not returned requests for comment.
The outage did not affect the university's fall 2025 start date on Monday, though the servers are connected to many operations on campus like key-in housing access, textbook purchases and course registration.
With the website completely dark in the days leading up to classes, students described anxiety at not being able to access financial aid or course schedules. One faculty member said students were advised to fill out paper forms and take them to the registrar if they needed to make changes, including adding or dropping classes.
Some students described the outage as inconvenient but manageable. Freshman Jahara Alvarez said that one of her professors was late to the first day of class Monday because he had to print out his syllabi — something most instructors have moved online in recent years.
Alvarez said she finalized her courses prior to the outage, so was able to access her schedule through an email sent by the university. She didn't purchase the nine textbooks she needs, however, since she wanted to compare their prices on the St. Thomas portal to the prices on Amazon.
"This made me realize, man, we really are so digitally dependent," Alvarez said.
A temporary site had reappeared at stthom.edu by Wednesday evening, though it was not fully operational. Interim President Dempsey Rosales Acosta said in an email on Thursday that the website was up and running with a new design, with "more and more" resources becoming available. The accessible resources included Microsoft products and Blackboard, as well as several software programs that help with HR, finance, enrollment management and accreditation functions.
The system outage came during a time of transition for the university, as its new president is expected to arrive in the coming weeks. Former President Richard Ludwick resigned last year, and interim administrators have worked ever since to smooth faculty members' fears about the school's financial position and its regular accreditation review.
The institution's 2024 annual audit showed some improvement with its finances, though the situation remains precarious as the school posted a deficit in its operating budget for the seventh consecutive year.
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