What was initially described as a technical issue has now put NWO’s ISAAC application system out of commission for almost a week. The research funding body has now reported the incident as a cyber attack and announced that its application system will stay offline for security reasons until next Monday at the earliest.

An NWO spokesperson refers to “failed attempts at infiltration”. There appears to be no damage to NWO’s systems and no data has been stolen.

Fallback option

The scientific community uses ISAAC to apply to NWO for research funding. On Tuesday afternoon, another deadline passed: this time for Take-off, a programme offering financial support to scientists looking to bring their innovative research results to market. As a fallback option, applicants are now being asked to email their applications.

“It’s a major inconvenience for researchers that the system is not working”, the spokesperson says. “As things stand, we are still in the dark as to the culprit and the motive. It may not even have been a targeted attack.” On Monday, 26 August, ISAAC should be up and running again.

In 2021, NWO was brought to a standstill by a successful hack. At the time, ISAAC was the only part of the system not to be affected. But then, as now, it was taken offline as a security measure.