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University of Maastricht
Photo: Emanuele Ciccomartino via www.im / Emanuele Ciccomarti / IMAGO
Three years after a serious hacker attack, Maastricht University is getting back considerably more money than it paid the criminals – around half a million instead of 200,000 euros.
The reason for this, in addition to successful police investigations, is the rise in the price of bitcoins.
The ransom was paid in cryptocurrency, according to the newspaper de Volkskrant.
The university confirmed the information at the request of the ANP news agency.
The university was hit by a large-scale cyber attack in 2019.
The criminals used so-called ransomware, a type of malware that blocks or restricts access to data until the victim pays a ransom.
The attackers encrypted hundreds of Windows servers and backup systems, leaving "25,000 students and staff inaccessible to academic data, the library or the mail," according to the report.
After a week, the university decided to pay the required 200,000 euros in bitcoin because "personal data was at risk of being lost and it was no longer possible for the students to take exams or work on their theses".
Waited two years - but generously rewarded
As early as 2020, the Dutch police traced part of the ransom money paid to the digital wallet (cyberwallet) of a man in Ukraine who served the hackers as a money launderer.
A number of different cryptocurrencies were found in an account, including 40,000 euros of the ransom paid by the University of Maastricht.
According to the report, the legal negotiations about the retransfer from the blocked wallet dragged on until spring 2022 - to the advantage of the university, which now receives the equivalent value, which has increased to almost 500,000 euros.
The manhunt for the hackers and the bulk of the ransom Bitcoins continues.
The money will not flow into the university's general budget, but will benefit a fund for students in need, said a spokesman for the newspaper.
He pointed out that given the cost of updating the IT system, the damage done by the hackers was far greater than the ransom.
sak/dpa