{"id":29775,"date":"2019-12-16T15:14:38","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T15:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.retarus.com\/blog\/city-of-new-orleans-university-of-giessen-furth-hospital-fall-victim-to-cybercrime-whos-next-in-line\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T08:53:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T08:53:44","slug":"city-of-new-orleans-university-of-giessen-furth-hospital-fall-victim-to-cybercrime-whos-next-in-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.retarus.com\/blog\/fr\/city-of-new-orleans-university-of-giessen-furth-hospital-fall-victim-to-cybercrime-whos-next-in-line\/","title":{"rendered":"City of New Orleans, University of Giessen, F\u00fcrth Hospital Fall Victim to Cybercrime \u2013 Who\u2019s Next in Line?"},"content":{"rendered":"
The computers at the Justus-Liebig University in Giessen have been offline for days. Last week, Klinikum F\u00fcrth (a large municipal hospital in southern Germany) was forced to disconnect from the emergency care services network. On the very same day, the City of New Orleans had to take precautionary steps after a virus had been discovered. Attacks on communal institutions and services around the globe are indeed becoming ever more frequent. <\/p>
In its recent Bericht zur Lage der IT-Sicherheit<\/em> (IT Security Status Report), released in mid-October, the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) had already confirmed an alarming increase in the amount of ransomware attacks, resulting in numerous production outages across the economy and causing some major disruption. The report, which covered the period up to the end of May 2019, showed that several hospitals and community institutions such as municipalities were among those organizations in Germany impacted by such attacks.<\/p> \u201cThe report shows that the quality of the cyber attacks has continued to increase and the threat remains high,\u201d adds BSI president Sch\u00f6nbohm. \u201cBut it also makes it clear that these cyber attacks can be warded off, provided that IT security measures are implemented consistently.\u201d If cyber security is lacking, digitalization simply can\u2019t be successful. <\/p> Last week, the news broke that Justus-Liebig University (JLU)<\/strong> in Giessen had been forced to disconnect its computers from the internet following a suspected hacker attack<\/a>, leaving staff needing to cope without wired Internet, email and internal networks for the time being. This response was brought about by the discovery of a previously unknown type of malware in the university network. According to a statement by JLU president, Professor Joybrato Mukherjee, this was not an attempt to blackmail the university by means of ransomware.<\/p> In the meantime, the employees at the JLU have started to check their office computers for malware. In addition, \u201cseveral hundred\u201d USB sticks containing an up-to-date virus scanner have been handed out to staff<\/a>. All of the computers have to be checked in two phases and may only be used again when they display no abnormalities under testing. At the same time, the team at the university\u2019s data center is working closely with experts from the Darmstadt-based ATHENE Research Center for Cyber Security <\/strong>to screen back-end systems for infection with the previously unfamiliar malware. According to Mukherjee, there may still be a long way to go before all systems are fully operational again. Meanwhile, an astonishing 38,000 students and lecturers will all have to queue up in person to fetch paper documents containing their new passwords<\/a>. <\/p> The university could have spared itself considerable trouble, cost and effort if its email systems had been safeguarded by the Europe-wide patented Retarus Patient Zero Detection\u00ae service<\/a>. As soon as the details of the malware had become available, all emails infected with the as yet unknown malware could later have easily been detected retroactively and it would have been visible which inboxes the infected emails had been placed in. From there, using the additional Real-Time Response service<\/a>, it would even have been possible to automatically move the messages into quarantine or delete them entirely. In any case, the forensics would have been considerably easier.<\/p> 