Case Study: Maastricht University strengthens cybersecurity resilience with SURF

Maastricht University restores operations in 4 minutes with SURF

Maastricht University faced a significant challenge when it was hit by a large-scale ransomware attack in December 2019, which encrypted its data and disrupted operations. The university engaged its vendor, SURF, specifically its SURFcert team, for incident response support to manage the crisis and determine a course of action.

SURF provided crucial support to Maastricht University throughout the incident. SURFcert assisted with the initial response and ongoing consultation, and SURF itself swiftly set up a temporary mail server to restore external communication. While the ultimate solution involved paying the ransom to obtain a decryption key, the collaboration with SURF was a key part of the overall response and recovery effort. The university also used the crisis to accelerate planned security improvements.

Maastricht University