Zurich University, the largest higher educational institution in Switzerland, announced on February 3 that he became the object of a “serious cyber attack”, which occurred against the background of a wave of hacks of European German -speaking universities.
At the time of the publication of this news the University website is still unavailable, but the telephone line with the press service works. In an official statement, a representative of the university described the incident as part of a malicious campaign aimed at educational and medical institutions in Europe.
Over the past few weeks, this is not the first attack on universities in German -speaking countries. Last month, for example, a group of extortionists Vice Society took responsibility for ’attack at the University of Duisburg Essenes in Germany.
And last week, the University of Applied Sciences of the Harz, the Western University of the Ruura and the European University of Applied Sciences also announced that they had suffered from hacker attacks. No group has yet taken responsibility for these attacks.
attacks lead to the inoperability of websites and some internal university systems. It is reported that in most cases, attackers gain access to a particular account, and then expand their presence in the system and gain full access to internal networks.
Whether the attack on the University of Zurich is standing at the University of Zurich, or a professional hacker group, has not yet been disclosed. However, representatives of the university said that attackers acted very professionally.
more than 25 thousand students study at the University of Zurich and about 3,700 teachers work. The university has several campuses throughout the city of Zurich. It is not yet clear what influence the attack had on the university’s academic activity.
In his statement, the university said that he had already strengthened measures and repelled attacks with the help of internal resources, as well as external support. And accounts and systems identified as compromised were isolated.
At the moment, the university representatives do not know whether any internal data were encrypted or extracted. However, all the necessary organizations were informed and involved in the investigation.