Governments, companies or organisations - they all have to deal with a multitude of cyber attacks every day. Criminal hackers use a variety of methods to compromise systems or steal data in order to achieve profit.
On Thursday, 7 May 2020, a cyber attack forced the central IT infrastructure of the RUB, which is managed by the "IT Services" department - which is independent of the Horst Görtz Institute for IT Security - to be taken out of operation.
Following the cyber attack, recovery of the compromised systems in the administration department can finally go ahead. Digital courses continue as scheduled.
The RUB’s team of experts has completed its analysis of the nature and causes of the attack to such an extent that the recovery of the shut-down systems can now go ahead. It has emerged that only a limited number of servers have been encrypted by malware.
The IT experts hope that the recovery of the systems will only take a few weeks. As the investigation is still ongoing, RUB can’t publish any detailed information regarding the type of malware.
Digital courses continue as scheduled.
As none of the systems necessary for digital classes has been affected by the attack, teaching could continue as scheduled from the very beginning. The only element that had come to a standstill for a short time following the attack was the optimisation of network capacities, especially for the email traffic of teachers and students, so that the current bottlenecks should soon be eliminated." (RUB press information, May 11, 2020)
The latest information on the situation can be found in the RUB news portal.
Due to the cyber attack, the office team of the Horst Görtz Institute for IT Security is currently not available by e-mail, only by telephone.
We kindly ask for your understanding.
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