MathWorks, the Massachusetts-based developer of the widely used MATLAB programming platform, has confirmed that a ransomware attack severely disrupted its services for over a week, affecting millions of engineers, scientists, and students worldwide.
The company finally disclosed the nature of the incident on May 26, 2025, after initially reporting technical issues on May 18.
The ransomware attack began impacting MathWorks’ IT infrastructure on Sunday, May 18, 2025, causing widespread outages across multiple online applications and internal systems.
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Ransomware Attack Leads to Widespread Outages
For more than a week, the company provided vague status updates, stating only that they were “continuing to investigate this issue” without revealing the true nature of the cybersecurity incident.
MathWorks officially confirmed the ransomware attack in a statement: “MathWorks experienced a ransomware attack. We have notified federal law enforcement of this matter. The attack affected our IT systems”.
“Some of our online applications used by customers became unavailable, and certain internal systems used by staff became unavailable, beginning on Sunday, May 18″.
The company emphasized that it is working with cybersecurity experts to restore affected systems and has involved federal law enforcement agencies in the investigation.
The attack severely impacted critical MathWorks services, including MATLAB Online, the License Center, File Exchange, Cloud Center, and MathWorks Store.
The licensing server outage proved particularly problematic, as users couldn’t verify their licenses to authenticate into web-based services.
This authentication failure left many customers unable to access MATLAB’s online features, which are increasingly popular in educational settings.
MATLAB Online and MATLAB Mobile were restored, followed by MATLAB Grader and Cody. However, several services remain affected, with the File Exchange operating in a degraded state and the License Center still experiencing issues.
Some commercial customers with self-hosted licensing servers escaped the worst impacts, highlighting the vulnerability of cloud-dependent authentication systems.
Impact on Users
The timing of the attack proved particularly devastating for the academic community, occurring during peak exam season when students rely heavily on MATLAB for thesis submissions and coursework.
With over 5 million users worldwide and adoption across more than 6,500 colleges and universities, the outage created widespread disruption.
Frustrated users on Reddit reported resorting to desperate measures, including pirating the software despite holding legitimate licenses.
One user commented: “I am done with MATLAB’s lack of explanation, so I just pirated it. I do have a genuine license, and since they can’t deliver the service I rightfully paid, I am going to pirate the hell out of it”.
Students and researchers described being unable to progress with critical projects, with one stating: “My entire research is at a stage where I [cannot] do anything without MATLAB”.
The incident underscores the growing sophistication of ransomware attacks targeting enterprise software companies.
As cybersecurity threats continue to evolve, organizations like MathWorks face increasing pressure to implement robust security measures while maintaining the accessibility that makes their platforms valuable to millions of users worldwide.
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