You can’t miss it as you enter the UM’s administrative building on the Minderbroedersberg: the new piece of art entitled Eternal Blue. It looks like a luminous ball, a globe, but is a flat screen with thousands of colourful lights. These represent the hacking attempts that were targeted at Maastricht University in the last 24 hours (a new data set is loaded every day). “There are roughly ten thousand a day,” says curator Mieke Derickx, who has by now retired. Eternal Blue was her last major project. The title refers to the software that cyber criminals used in their attack on the UM. The colours that light up on the ‘globe’ represent the countries from which the attacks are carried out.
The installation is by the artist Richard Vijgen with which he refers to the hack on Maastricht University in December 2019. “The event is part of our collective memory,” says Derickx.
Still, this is not just about that moment in the history of the university. “We want to show what is invisible, but what we are facing every day. Examples include last week’s e-mail in which employees were warned against an increase in phishing attacks and malicious software via attachments, such as zip files. Moreover, you should see these attacks as modern warfare. Criminals try to cause disorder. Hacking attempts are a daily concern for the UM.”