Mississippi State University (MSU) recently acknowledged that a university server was the target of a cyber attack on Wednesday, January 9, though MSU chief information officer Mike Rackley said no “secure data” (Social Security numbers, credit card information, health information or grades) was compromised.
“This represents only one of hundreds of servers in the MSU system,” Rackley said in a statement. “In response to incidents like this one and the increasing number of Internet-enabled computer attacks, Mississippi State continually modifies its systems and practices to enhance the security of sensitive information.”
Hacker Gevolus, a member of the Brazilian Cyber Army, published login information for more than 500 users on Pastebin. “The data contains admission details, usernames, addresses, emails and encrypted passwords of [university] staff and students,” HackRead reports.
“As a precaution, administrators advised those affected by the hacking to change their account passwords,” WTVA reports.
“Joe Farris, an assistant to the president, was one of the MSU employees linked to the posted encrypted passwords,” writes The Starkville Daily News’ Carl Smith. “He said the entry was used for an administrative website he ‘very rarely used in the past,’ and the site itself contained ‘no information of consequence’ to his privacy.”
