ICES successfully mitigates cyber attacks, enhances security measures for future resilience
ICES experienced a cyber attack involving DARX ransomware and a DDoS attack in June–July 2024. Here are the actions taken to address the attack and strengthen resilience to future incidents.
Published:
8 August 2024
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ICES onsite servers were attacked on 21 June 2024. Immediately upon discovering the ransomware event, our systems were promptly closed. Working with cyber-security specialists, we identified the threat and quarantined the entire ICES onsite infrastructure, subsequently removing the threat from the affected machines. ICES onsite infrastructure was rebuilt from clean offsite protected backups and closely monitored to ensure the integrity of the system as it was restored. Additional software and monitoring have been implemented and actions taken to increase security and safeguard all our systems, both on-premises and in the cloud.
On 12 July, we experienced a second attack. This denial of service (DDoS) attack involved more than a billion hits on our system, which overwhelmed our web resources and led to the inaccessibility of ICES website and community portal, although there was no security breach of any ICES system. ICES IT team implemented solutions that brought ICES back online and enacted new monitoring protocols to prevent similar attacks.
As a network of more than 4000 scientists from almost 300 institutes, our databases contain personal data, including professional contact information and ICES meeting details. The unauthorized access to our servers could have potentially exposed this data but following an extensive investigation, there is no evidence of data theft in either attack, which the cyber-security specialists have confirmed. There is also no evidence of any malware having been present in ICES systems that could have spread to users of our website, document libraries, or databases.
ICES infrastructure has been assessed to be safe and secure. Still, remain at a raised state of vigilance, and additional security measures are likely to be implemented over the coming weeks to further reduce future risks to our systems.
We take personal data protection very seriously and are committed to safeguarding ICES community's privacy and security. We recommend remaining vigilant against cyber threats. If you receive any suspicious communications that appear to originate from ICES, verify their legitimacy by contacting [email protected] or +45 3338 6700.
