Hochschule Kempten, a prominent university of applied sciences located in Kempten, Germany, has disclosed falling victim to a criminal cyberattack that necessitated the shutdown of its IT infrastructure.
The institution, situated in Bavaria near the mountainous border with Austria, caters to approximately 5,500 students and stands as the latest target in a series of cyber incidents afflicting the technical education sector in Germany.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the university lamented, “Despite very high security precautions, the criminals managed to gain access to parts of the university’s IT infrastructure.”
As a precautionary measure, access to several IT systems has been obstructed, rendering the university unreachable via email, albeit the telephone system remains operational.
Kempten emphasized that all stakeholders are diligently working to contain the attack, the full extent of which remains undetermined, making it impossible to ascertain when the university’s IT systems and services will be fully operational again.
This attack follows a string of ransomware incidents targeting German-speaking applied sciences universities last year.
In June, Kaiserslautern University of Applied Sciences (HS Kaiserslautern) reported an incident, while in March, the Vice Society ransomware group implicated Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW Hamburg) on its leak site following an attack late the preceding year.
February witnessed Switzerland’s largest university, the University of Zurich, becoming the target of a “serious cyberattack,” amidst a surge in attacks on educational and health institutions, according to a spokesperson.
Prior to that, Harz University of Applied Sciences in Saxony-Anhalt, Ruhr West University, and the EU/FH European University of Applied Sciences all disclosed impacts from cyberattacks.
