Osaka Metropolitan University hit by suspected ransomware, roughly 500 servers down

On 6 October 2026, Osaka Metropolitan University (OMU) — one of Japan's largest public universities, formed in 2022 from the merger of Osaka Prefecture University and Osaka City University — confirmed that a system failure it attributes to a suspected ransomware attack had knocked out roughly 500 servers across its information systems. The university said the incident began late the previous week and warned at a press conference that data on at least 130,000 current and former students, faculty and others associated with the institution may have been exposed.

The outage was sweeping. OMU reported that its internal network, email, academic administration, educational support, financial accounting, payroll, human resources and library services, as well as its public websites, were all disrupted. Systems hosted externally — including the entrance examination and enrollment systems, the university hospital's electronic medical record system and the veterinary clinical center — were reported unaffected. Some reporting indicated that much of the university's backup data had also been encrypted, complicating recovery.

Data and investigation

As of its initial disclosure, OMU had not confirmed that personal data was actually stolen and was still investigating whether any information had leaked. The potentially exposed records are said to include names, addresses and email addresses, spanning data inherited from both predecessor universities. The university is working with external cybersecurity specialists and has reported the incident to Japan's data protection authority and other government agencies. It has not identified a threat actor or said whether it received a ransom demand.

Impact on students

Lectures were canceled while the university worked to restore its systems, with in-person classes canceled through at least 8 October and a planned resumption on 9 October; the resumption of online classes was left dependent on recovery progress. University president Hiroyuki Sakuragi said it was "regrettable that we could not prevent the incident" and pledged that OMU would manage the situation so it could continue to fulfill its mission.