Current situation

(State: 20.12.2019)

Recently, there have been reports in the news about possible hacker attacks on universities and clinics. In principle, the University of Göttingen and University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG) as well as the GWDG are also at risk. However, we have taken appropriate precautions to deal with the current threats.

IT officers, IT coordinators and network officers can contact the GWDG service hotline at support@gwdg.de for the University, the MPG or the GWDG, the UMG IT support at it.support@med.uni-goettingen.de for the UMG or the Information Security Officer (ISB) of the University of Göttingen incl. UMG (Dr. Holger Beck; it-vorfall@uni-goettingen.de, it-vorfall@med.uni-goettingen.de resp. it-vorfall@gwdg.de) if they have any questions about these issues or about appropriate measures.

IT security measures have been introduced for the IT systems maintained by the IT service providers on the Göttingen campus to avert danger, including filter and control measures for potentially dangerous email attachments. As a user of our systems, please help to improve information security at the Göttingen Campus!

In particular, we ask you to apply the following general IT security guidelines:


  • Email attachments should not be opened without caution. Check questionable attachments especially thoroughly, e.g. by asking the sender. If in doubt, refrain from opening such attachments on your work computer. This applies in particular to attachments from private email accounts or addresses.
  • If malware is suspected, inform your IT support staff or your ISB as soon as possible. Disconnect the computer immediately by unplugging the network cable and deactivating the wifi from the data network. Do not switch it off.
  • Never log on to a computer suspected of being infected with an administrator account and disconnect it immediately from the data network without switching it off.
  • The ISB must always be informed immediately of any potential IT incident and will initiate further measures if necessary.
  • If possible, avoid the use of USB sticks. If the use of USB sticks is indispensable for data transfer, please ensure that the USB stick and the computers involved are free of viruses so that the protection systems of the University, the UMG and the GWDG are not circumvented by the use of USB sticks.
  • Back up your data regularly.
  • Do not work regularly with administrative user IDs. This applies in particular to surfing the Internet and reading emails.
  • Do not activate macros in Microsoft Office documents (Message “Activate contents”, exception: official documents of the University/UMG/GWDG, which are provided in University/UMG/GWDG intranets).

Further information is also available at

https://www.bsi-fuer-buerger.de/BSIFB/DE/Service/Aktuell/Informationen/Artikel/emotet.html
https://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/it-sicherheit/52733.html

Further information or training can be requested via the GWDG service hotline.