Maastricht University Cyber Attack Symposium – Lessons Learnt

On 5 February, the University of Maastricht gave explanation about the ransomware outbreak the university was affected by on 23 Dec 2019. Fox-IT did research on this security incident and indicated that TA505 was behind the attack. Maastricht University confirmed that the cybercriminals were paid 30 bitcoins (197.000 euro). No negotiations have taken place with these criminals. Also, probably no personal and scientific data fell in to wrong hands, but an investigation is still ongoing.

Most important lessons that the university learnt to prevent damage are:
1) raise cyber security awareness,
2) importance of the human factor in cyber security, such as recognizing phishing mails and updating and upgrading systems.

Click here for more information and to watch the live recordings of the cyber attack symposium.

You can read a management summary of the Fox-IT report and UM's response to the report in English