The Minister for Justice and Higher and Further Education has said that initial investigations into a cyber attack on Munster Technological University indicate that much of the personal information leaked onto the dark web "may not relate to students".
Simon Harris said that this was a "provisional view" and that work on investigating the cyber attack is ongoing.
He said that advice on cyber security will be made available to students at Munster Technological University "very shortly".
Mr Harris said that it will be mostly comprising "general good cyber security advice", such as changing passwords and being vigilant to phishing scams.
He said that MTU had responded in "an appropriate and correct way to what is a criminal act".
Mr Harris also said that he is being regularly briefed on the situation by MTU, an Garda Síochána and the National Cyber Security Centre.
Asked about the type of information leaked onto the dark web, the minister said that "the range of information that a university would have would differ very significantly to what the health service would have had when we saw the HSE cyber-attack some time ago".
"I am still conscious that any data... emerging the dark web can cause anxiety", he added.
Minister Harris echoed comments from the Head of the National Cyber Security Centre that "we shouldn't overstate the significance of this either".
He said that the efforts of the "criminal gang" to "extort money" had "not worked" and had "failed".
