The University of Alicante has successfully contained the largest cyberattack attempt suffered by the institution to date after detecting unusual activity on its servers and immediately activating preventative measures to minimise the impact on its computer systems.
The incident was detected last Thursday, when monitoring systems alerted tech staff to suspicious activities in one of the university’s technological infrastructures. According to the Vice-Rector for Digital Transformation, Rafael Molina, the evidence pointed to the potential entry of ransomware, a type of malware that can encrypt information on affected systems for extortion purposes.
Given the potential severity of the intrusion, the Security Division of the IT Service and systems technicians acted immediately and deactivated certain services within the university environment to halt the spread. The intervention allowed the attack to be stopped in record time and limited the impact to a few secondary servers.
As a precaution, the University of Alicante proceeded to halt servers that shared the affected infrastructure until a thorough analysis of the environment could be completed. This measure affected, amongst other services, UACloud, the intranet that provides access to the institution’s technological services; remote access for workers, impacting teleworking; and electronic administration, which has resulted in the suspension of legal deadlines for procedures managed through this route.
Molina defended these containment measures as necessary to minimise the attack and guarantee the integrity of the systems before their complete recovery. The university is now working to restore the suspended services with all security guarantees. The Vice-Manager of Information Technologies, Iván Mingot, confirmed that the institution is working to get the affected services up and running again as quickly as possible.
The Management of the University of Alicante has issued a message of reassurance, stating that within just 24 hours, technicians from the IT Service managed to restore essential services and set up secure gateways to access the interrupted services, ensuring the continuity of administrative activity. The manager of the institution, Julio García Mora, stressed that the action allowed essential processes to remain operational despite the restrictions applied for security.
Technicians have worked throughout the weekend to verify the actual scope of the incident. According to the university, there has been no data leak, and the core systems of the university were not affected. The institution guarantees that no compromised or sensitive information has been affected by the attempted attack and that personal, economic and academic data have been safe at all times.
Furthermore, the University of Alicante has confirmed that the enrolment system has not been affected, meaning the process will go ahead according to the planned schedule.
The institution still keeps some services suspended as a precaution while finalising the necessary technical checks before their full restoration. Technological managers expect to return to normality in the coming days, though they insist that the priority is to guarantee the security, integrity and future continuity of the computer environment.
The university acknowledges the inconvenience that the partial shutdown may have caused at a particularly sensitive time of the academic year, coinciding with the exam resit period and enrolment, but emphasises that essential processes will function normally.
Since the incident was detected, the Rector of the University of Alicante, Amparo Navarro, has been leading the monitoring of the crisis in coordination with her management team, the Vice-Rectorate for Digital Transformation, the Management and the technical units involved.
The institution has mobilised more than a dozen specialists in cybersecurity and computer systems from the university itself. Navarro highlighted the reaction capacity, constant monitoring and diligence of the technical teams, which, she pointed out, avoided wide-ranging damage.
Initial investigations suggest that the attempted attack could be related to an organised gang that uses this type of action for financial gain. The Rector has brought the facts to the attention of the competent authorities with the aim of filing the corresponding complaint with the National Police.
The University of Alicante has also communicated the incident to the data protection officer of the institution, Rubén Martínez, so that it can be transferred through the appropriate channels to the Spanish Data Protection Agency, despite the institution maintaining that no leak of data or sensitive information occurred.
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