One Of Europe’s Largest Universities Knocked Offline For Days After Cyberattack

The machine systems of La Sapienza successful Rome, 1 of nan largest universities successful Europe pinch astir 120,000 students, person been down for 3 days pursuing an evident ransomware attack. 

In a post and stories connected Instagram published Tuesday, nan assemblage said that it took down its systems retired of precaution pursuing nan cyberattack, that it was investigating nan incident and moving connected restoring each integer services, and that immoderate connection channels specified arsenic email and workstations are “partially limited.” 

The schoolhouse besides said that it was moving to reconstruct systems based connected backups, which were not affected by nan hack. 

As of this penning nan Sapienza website remains down. 

Italian regular news outlet Il Corriere della Sera reported this week that nan disruption is owed to a ransomware attack, thing that nan schoolhouse nor different authorities person confirmed truthful far. The hackers allegedly sent nan assemblage a nexus to a petition for a ransom, which has a countdown of 72 hours, which would commencement only erstwhile nan nexus is clicked. 

La Sapieza did not respond to TechCrunch’s petition for remark sent via email. It’s unclear if nan assemblage is capable to judge email astatine nan clip we reached out.

Spokespeople for Italy’s nationalist cybersecurity agency, Agenzia per la Cybersicurezza Nazionale (or ACN), which is investigating nan incident, did not instantly respond to a petition for comment, asking for much accusation and if nan onslaught was caused by ransomware.

In different article connected Wednesday, Il Corriere reported that nan hacking group down nan onslaught is called “Femwar02,” which was antecedently chartless anterior to this incident. The pack utilized nan BabLock malware, which was discovered successful 2023 and is besides known arsenic Rorschach, according to nan report.

La Sapienza said that exams are proceeding arsenic normal, but students who want to motion up for exams must do truthful straight pinch professors. The schoolhouse besides group up “infopoints” connected respective locations connected field to supply accusation to students. 

Like different types of organizations, universities and schools are predominant targets of hackers. Last year, nan notorious hacking group ShinyHunters hacked Harvard University and University of Pennsylvania and stole information — without utilizing malware to encrypt its systems — successful an effort to extort nan schools. The hackers revealed this week that nan schools did not salary nan ransom.