The attacks on institutes and websites never end: while all digital services at the University of Duisburg were paralyzed by a ransomware attack, unknown persons attacked the Vatican websites with a DDoS attack and temporarily paralyzed them.
The University of Duisburg was hit by a ransomware attack. Since some systems were encrypted in the process, the university had to shut down the systems and separate the networks. After the attack, the special department of the Cologne public prosecutor's office, Cybercrime NRW (ZAC NRW), was called in immediately.
University of Duisburg: Nobody can be reached
As with many ransomware attacks, the communication system was completely paralyzed. Therefore, the university is currently still not available - neither by e-mail nor by phone. All MS Office applications cannot be used either. The university itself writes: “The University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) has become the target of a cyber attack. The entire IT infrastructure then had to be shut down and disconnected from the network. Central services such as PC applications, e-mail and landline telephony are not available. The IT specialists at the university are working flat out to assess the damage and restore the systems. How long this will take is unclear.
The attack on the IT took place at the weekend. After hackers penetrated the internal systems, they encrypted large parts and demanded a ransom. The university management informed the responsible security authorities and filed a complaint. External specialists are also consulted.” So it is still unclear until when the university will be able to act again.
Vatican website down
No sooner had the Pope condemned the cruelty of Russian troops in Ukraine than there was a response from Russian hackers. All Vatican websites were down for several hours. Experts assume that a targeted DDoS attack has overloaded the systems.
When the websites of Vatican were not available, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni spoke of maintenance work. Shortly thereafter, he announced that the site was down due to "abnormal attempts to access the site." Translated, this means DDoS attack. Also the affected side Vatican News is now online again.