The Penn State College of Engineering announced on May 15 that it has been the victim of two cyberattacks that date back to 2012.
The FBI has been investigating the attacks for years, but didn’t make anything public in hopes of catching the hackers. University officials said they do not believe any research data, social security numbers or credit card information has been stolen, but some of the hacked machines held the social security numbers of roughly 18,000 people, according to statecollege.com.
The College of Engineering’s computer network will be offline for several more days, and all affected students have been notified of the security breach. All engineering students, faculty and staff will have to change their passwords.
At least one of the attacks is believed to have originated in China. Campus Safety has previously reported on the dangers of cyber threats.
