The Berlin University of Applied Sciences and Technology (BHT) is currently cut off from the digital world. Both website and email server at the German capital’s second largest university of applied sciences have been disconnected after falling victim to hackers.
According to a report in the “Tagesspiegel” (Google machine translation) daily, the university was recently the target of a ransomware attack. In such cases, organizations are often forced to shut down all their computer systems completely. Several weeks or even months may pass before they can be restored for regular operation from backups which are hopefully available and up-to-date, the digital ransom has been paid to the attackers, or the systems have been rebuilt from scratch. When TU Berlin, another major university in Germany, was hacked by the Conti ransomware gang in 2021, for instance, they not only had confidential data stolen but were also impacted by the failure of several systems, including the campus cards required for the library and public transport ticket. In addition, university staff and students were only able to communicate via a provisional emergency email system for several months.
Companies and organizations looking to proactively take precautions for just such a case would be well advised to book Retarus’ Email Continuity service. This web mail system hosted externally in the Retarus Enterprise Cloud allows companies to switch over without delay in emergency cases, enabling them to continue communicating via email even after their own infrastructures have been shut down. During regular operations, the service is already running in parallel behind the scenes and remains synchronized with the organization’s active directory. Depending on how it has been configured, once the service has been activated the users’ email accounts not only mirror the latest contact details for staff but also display the email threads engaged in over the past few days or weeks.
Find out more about Retarus Email Continuity from our website or directly from your local Retarus representative.
