Osaka Metropolitan University cancels classes after suspected ransomware attack

University Systems Disrupted

Osaka Metropolitan University (OMU) canceled classes and disabled a significant portion of its IT infrastructure following a suspected ransomware attack. The disruption, which began late last week, rendered internal networks, email, and various administrative and academic systems unavailable.

Approximately 500 servers ceased operation due to the attack. Systems for academic administration, educational support, financial accounting, payroll, human resources, and library services were affected, alongside the university's websites and internal network.

Potential Data Exposure

Reports indicate that information belonging to at least 130,000 current and former students, faculty members, and other associates may have been exposed. This potentially includes names, addresses, and email addresses, as well as data from Osaka Prefecture University and Osaka City University, which merged to form OMU in 2022.

OMU has not confirmed any data theft and is investigating whether information was leaked. The incident has been reported to Japan's data protection authority and other government agencies.

Operational Impact and Recovery

The university canceled classes through at least Thursday, with plans to resume in-person classes on Friday. Online classes will restart based on system recovery progress. Entrance exam applications and enrollment procedures, hosted on external servers, remained unaffected.

The electronic medical record system at the university hospital and its veterinary clinical center also continued to operate without disruption.

Ongoing Investigation

OMU believes ransomware caused the outage and is collaborating with external cybersecurity specialists to investigate the attack. The attackers have not been identified, and it is unknown if a ransom demand was received. This incident follows other recent cyber breaches in Japan, though no connection has been established.