Servers at top US university get hacked, details placed on Torrent sites

Cambridge (MA) – The servers of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard were hacked last month and the intruder appears to have placed the data on Torrent sites. School officials say the personal information – including addresses and Social Security numbers – of up to 10,000 applicants were compromised.

In a press release, Harvard officials said applicants for the Fall 2006 to 2008 school years were affected and that the hacker accessed applicant summaries which include the names, Social Security numbers, Dates of Birth, addresses, phone numbers, test scores and previous schools attended.

“Protecting personal information is something Harvard takes seriously, and we are truly sorry for the inconvenience and concern this incident may cause,” said Margot N. Gill, administrative dean of the GSAS.

The data has been seeded onto Bittorrent networks and can be found on popular sites like thepiratebay.org. “This is the backup of gsas.harvard.edu. We have release it because want demonstration the insecurity of harvard’server,” reads the file description. The submitter then says he is making an example of the server administrator, “Maybe you don’t like it … they don’t know how to secure a website.”

Harvard is offering free identity theft protection and credit monitoring to all those affected by the data breach.

It must be a Yale plot.