The threat actor Vice Society has reportedly claimed responsibility for a ransomware attack against the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) in November 2022 and released some of the stolen data on the dark web.
Made by UDE Presentation Over the weekend, it said the data was released because the university did not comply with the attackers’ ransom demands.
At the same time, the university clarified that all security measures are based on the Federal Information Security Office’s (BSI) standards and BSI’s IT Baseline protection methodology.
“The fact that the attackers still extracted the data and demanded a ransom once again demonstrates the organization’s highly professional approach and criminal intent,” the university said.
UDE added that the university shut down its entire IT infrastructure and disconnected it from the network shortly after the attack was discovered. Thanks to that, criminal gangs would have had only a limited amount of data available.
“The published data are currently being evaluated,” explained UDE. “If violations affect people or institutions, they will be notified as soon as possible.”
According to Raj Samani, SVP Chief Scientist Rapid7UDE deserves credit for not paying the ransom demanded by the Vice Society.
“Organizations must implement technologies and security controls that not only avoid paying ransoms, but also detect potential intrusions and lateral movements, but also protect data if threats are not eliminated early.” there is. [through] Using file encryption,” Samani said. Information security.
This isn’t Vice Society’s first ransomware attack against the education sector. In 2022, the group will join Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, Innsbruck Medical College, and Los Angeles Unified School District.
“Education is Most Targeted Industries In terms of ransomware attacks published in 2022, the Vice Society claims the majority of these incidents.” black fog CEO Darren Williams.
“In terms of data exfiltration, more than 50% of these incidents involved data exfiltration, but we expect this number to increase as data breaches are reported in the months ahead.”
The Vice Society Is Also Believed To Be Delayed Recent leaks of sensitive data from 14 UK schools.
