Credit and debit card machines on the Fairfax campus were down today after a cyber attack disrupted the system.

According to executive director of Campus Retail Operations, Mark Kraner, a DNS attack hit the system this morning. One type of DNS attack associated with credit card systems is a Denial-of-Service attack or DoS attack that floods a system with data information, causing it to completely shut down. A patch was put in place at 1 p.m. to stop the attack and restart the system and hopefully, according to Kraner, prevent future attacks. At this time, there is no official comment from the university about the cause of the attack.

The credit and debit card machines have returned to their normal operating capabilities.

If there is any new information, Fourth Estate will provide further updates on this incident.