The University of Maastricht (UM) in the Netherlands announced that it had fallen victim to a ransomware attack, which took place on Monday, December 23. All Windows systems stopped working.
UM has more than 18,000 students, 4,400 staff and 70,000 alumni. For the past two years, it has been ranked among the top 500 universities in the world.
“Maastricht University (UM) has been subjected to a serious cyber attack , ” the university said on Christmas Eve.
"Almost all Windows systems are affected and it is extremely difficult to use services . UM is currently working on a solution."
At this time, we do not know which ransomware was used to carry out the attack. We also do not know if any scientific data before the systems were encrypted.
The university said it was using increased security measures to protect scientific data, but an investigation was underway to determine whether there had been unauthorized access.
All systems were shut down
The university said it during the investigation down all systems as a precaution
"In order to operate in the safest possible manner, UM has temporarily taken all of its systems offline. Everything is being done so that students and employees can access the systems as soon as possible."
The ransomware caused extensive damage to the university, so the time to restore all affected computers cannot be estimated.
“For the same reason, it is not possible to state with absolute certainty which systems have been affected and which have not,” the university adds. “This requires additional research.”.
The Executive Board and the Deans of the faculties are doing everything they can to fix the problems and provide immediate access to the systems.
The university's IT team is working with external experts to restore systems and investigate the hacking attack. Dutch authorities are also aware of the incident.
The university emphasizes that its priority now is to ensure that its systems are not compromised again.
