IIT Madras has roped in technology services company Microsoft to resolve a server-related dysfunction impacting official e-mails since late Monday evening, said a senior professor aware of the network issue plaguing one of the top engineering and research institutes in the country.
In a statement to the press on Wednesday, IIT-Madras said the e-mail sever at IIT Madras “went down and the cause is being investigated,” without mentioning when the outage had occurred. “The Institute has a back-up for the email system and will restore the system soon.“
The professor said IIT-Madras has formed a team comprising senior officials at the institute and people from Microsoft to ascertain the root cause, amid speculation that it could a cyber attack. Asked specifically, the professor responded:”Servers are shut down; do not know the reason yet.”
Late on Wednesday, speculation of a cyber attack on the institute turned rampant, triggering need for advanced security systems in campuses increasingly collaborating with industry on turning research into products. Recently, the NPCIL admitted to a cyber attack on a computer used for “administrative purposes” at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Southern Tamil Nadu.
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