A major cyber attack has significantly disrupted the research and teaching operations of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel over the past two weeks. According to university spokesman Boris Pawlowski, it was a massive overload attack, a so-called denial-of-service attack (DDoS).
The have largely paralyzed the online operation of the university. For example, access to the Internet, e-mails and databases has been difficult, as has the retrieval of online study documents.
"Such attacks are nothing new to us, but the intensity and length of this action were very unusual," says Pavlovski the SPIEGEL. On October 28, the attack had begun and had not weakened in the weeks following, but had become stronger. "That went in waves," said the spokesman. It had suffered "considerable restrictions" on tens of thousands of devices, but: "The attack was not associated with an intrusion into our systems." It was only last night that employees were able to get a handle on the problem.
The university has now brought the matter to the announcement. The Department of Cybercrime of the State Criminal Police Office has taken the investigation to locate the perpetrators, as a police spokeswoman said.
