A hacker got into a computer server at the University of Northern Iowa over the holiday break, but officials say it’s unlikely the person gleaned anything of value. Steve Moon, U-N-I’s acting associate vice president for information technology, says the compromised server was used to store and distribute music files, among other things.
Moon says the server was also used to authenticate people into U-N-I’s Wellness Recreation Center and contained “local U-N-I information about faculty, staff and students on our campus, but there was no information of the important protected class in terms of Social Security numbers or financial information stored on the server at all.”
Moon says his staff took immediate action to limit access to the machine and he says they have no reason to think U-N-I data stored on the machine was accessed. As for finding the culprit somewhere on the World Wide Web, he says to forget about it.
Moon says “The breach occurred from outside of campus but trying to pinpoint where it came from is pretty fruitless an effort. We’ll make sure the vulnerability that existed won’t happen again on that machine or others and move on with trying to protect our campus from a constant barrage of Internet hackers.”
He says while a breach is never good, on the plus side, the information on the server has little-to-no value outside the university.