Osaka Metropolitan University cancels classes after suspected ransomware attack

Osaka Metropolitan University has canceled classes due to a system outage caused by a suspected ransomware attack. The university's internal network, email, and various administrative and academic systems are currently unavailable. According to the Japan Times, about 500 servers related to the university's information system stopped operating after the attack on Friday.

The university has announced that data on at least 130,000 students and teachers may have been exposed to unauthorized access. The potentially exposed data includes names, addresses, and email addresses of people related to the university, as well as information linked to Osaka Prefecture University and Osaka City University, which merged in April 2022 to create Osaka Metropolitan University.

The campus network for students and the portal site for teaching staff remained unusable as of Monday. The Record reports that the university is working to restore the affected system, with the goal of reopening lectures on Friday. Hiroyuki Sakuragi, president of the university, expressed regret that the incident could not be prevented and pledged to deal with the situation to fulfill the university's mission.

Brief written by urgent.news from The Record, Japan Times, Nippon.com News — 3 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.