A North Dakota University System, NDSU, computer server that includes the personal information (names and Social Security numbers) of nearly 300,000 former and current students and 780 faculty and staff members has been hacked. No credit card or bank account information was present in the records.
"It is very unfortunate that this has happened," Interim University Chancellor Larry Skogen said in a statement. "There is no evidence that the intruder accessed any of your information, but we can't rule out the possibility."
At the moment, the university officials are not sure if anything was compromised.
The 'suspicious activity' was discovered by Core Technology Services, the information technology arm of the North Dakota University System Feb. 7. Darin King, Deputy North Dakota University System chief information officer, said that the network server was immediately shut down and internal investigation and forensic analysis of the server were initiated, the Bismarck Tribune reports.
Skogen said the security breach appears to be an offshore attack and the purpose might be to target other computers for outside accounts.
NDSU has 11 public colleges, including six four-year universities and five two-year schools. King said that protecting information from hackers is a daily struggle in the IT world.
"Information security is of the utmost importance to us, and it is very unfortunate this has happened" Skogen said. "We are working diligently to help make sure this doesn't happen again. It's disturbing that higher education is often targeted by criminal elements in today's global assaults on IT systems."
In an attempt to prevent similar incidents in future, NDUS has disconnected all access to the affected server, revalidated each individual user, incorporated more severe intrusion detection measures, and created a taskforce to address how to access data securely.
