Cambridge University Medical IT System Hacked

The University of Cambridge is ranked as one the world’s top universities, with its medical school and vast research facilities, but recently hundreds of researchers have been unable to access computer systems because of so-called "malicious activity".

Several university departments linked to the Clinical School Computing Service have been not been working for over a month and hundreds of researchers have been unable to uses  computer services or access data, as a result of suspected hacking.

This problem was first discovered five weeks ago in the Clinical School Computing Service, used for high profile medical studies, but it has only recently been made public. So far, the university has said that there was no evidence any data had been taken and the incident was contained. Other Cambridge University IT systems were unaffected and working as normal.

In a statement, the university said relevant authorities had been informed and restoring files and service had begun but "will take some time".

The Clinical School Computing Service is an IT system used by students and institutes based at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. An email sent to staff following the attack advised that people change their passwords immediately if they receive a notice saying someone else has logged in to their account from another device.

With the aim to protect sensitive data being used by the researchers, the university took some of its IT systems offline, but the institution could not say when normal service would resume. An external investigation took place and found no evidence that data had been taken, according to  university sources

The incident is the latest in a long line of high profile institutions to have its systems targeted. In February, hackers disrupted computer services at the University of  Manchester and In October 2023, the British Library had data stolen and shared on the dark web. It affected operations for months.

BBC     |     Wired     |     Cambridge News     |     Varsity     |     Computing     |     Inside Higher Ed

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