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50,000 students change password after hack

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50,000 students change password after hack
Photo: DPA

Repeated hack attacks have forced over 50,000 students in western Germany to change their university account passwords. Culprits already gained access to a number of inboxes since January, it was reported on Tuesday.

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The Ruhr University in Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia, has been the target of a series of hacker attacks over the past three weeks, said the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. At least 16 inboxes belonging to staff and students are known to have been accessed.

Experts have traced the IP address of the hackers to Russia, but university administration admitted that “whether the owners of the Russian computer are actually responsible for the attack is questionable,” Brigitte Wojcieszynski, head of the department for information security, told the paper.

Students have all received an email informing them of the attacks and recommending they change their passwords to help prevent hackers from gaining their information. What they could be after and why remains unclear, said Wojcieszynski.

The Local/jcw

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