2 B.C. student aid websites shut down after possible hacking: ministry

Update - May 6, 2020: Student Aid B.C. says its website is back up and running, and that no private data was compromised during the incident.

The Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Trainingsays it has temporarily shut down two British Columbia websitesafter both appear to have been compromised.

The home pages of StudentAid B.C. and LearnLive B.C. were alteredSunday and replaced with a statement allegedly from a hacker group.

The affected sites offer application assistance or details aboutscholarships, grants, bursaries, loans and other financial programsfor post-secondary students.

A statement from the ministry says it has been alerted to theproblem and is investigating, along with the Office of the ChiefInformation Officer.

The ministry says it is not aware that any personal informationhas been compromised.

Both sites have now been disabled to prevent any further exposurewhile the ministry says its information technology staff are workingto fix the issues.