Harvard hacked

Harvard University has been hacked.

The elite school on Wednesday night said it had discovered an intrusion on its faculty network as well as on its administrative network.

{mosads}“At this time, we have no indication that research data or personal data managed by Harvard systems (e.g. Social Security numbers) have been exposed,” the school noted on a Web page setup to provide information about the incident.

Harvard login credentials, however, may have been compromised, the school cautioned.

With the intrusion, Harvard joins a rapidly growing list of universities that have been hacked.

Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland were both hit last year, with hackers nabbing data on students, staff and faculty. The Maryland breach laid bare the personal information, including Social Security numbers, of over 300,000 people stretching back 20 years.

Maryland President Wallace Loh was even pulled before the Senate Commerce Committee to testify about the cyberattack. Loh told lawmakers the incident would cost the school upwards of $6 million.

It’s also likely not the first time Harvard has been breached.

In 2012, a hacking group that goes by the name Team GhostShell said it had breached 100 big name universities around the world, including Harvard, Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Universities are a prime target for cyber crooks. Their archives of personal data can fetch considerable money on the dark Web.  

Foreign powers looking for an advantage also have digital spies snoop on universities in order to pilfer advanced research data.