The Open University of Cyprus and police officers combatting electronic crime believe hackers will again make good on their threat to release a new trove of personal data grabbed from the Nicosia-based institution.
This is what Philenews reported on Tuesday, adding that the group of hackers calling themselves ‘Medusa’ had demanded €100,000 – to be paid in cryptocurrency – from the university in return for not releasing data.
Last Thursday, after their deadline for payment of ransom elapsed, they had dumped a trove of grabbed data on the ‘dark web’ – the first so far.
The remote-learning university which has repeated that no ransom will be paid announced the hack in late March.
IT experts believe the full dump may consist of tens of gigabytes of data since the hackers apparently managed to access the university’s entire electronic infrastructure.
The leaked data could contain passwords, files, photos, medical certificates, and emails, among other personal information.
The full implications of the leak would only become apparent when it is clear exactly what information was intercepted by the hackers.
