Hackers have struck elite US universities in recent weeks, pilfering sensitive data from donors
and making off with students’ information in a string of digital heists that only add stress to schools already besieged with political pressure.
Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania have each d
isclosed breaches within the past three weeks, months after a politically motivated attacker burrowed deep into networks at New York City’s Columbia University
. The identity of the intruders in most of the recent incidents remains a mystery. However, the hackers typically duped school employees in order to access databases of pe
rsonal information about prominent individuals associated with each institution.
The break-in at Harvard, which the school discovered on Nov. 18, resulted in the theft of personal data and other information from fundraisers at the school,
which typically raises more than $1 billion annually. At Dartmouth, attackers exploited a software vulnerability in an Oracle Corp. product to st
eal files from the university, the school said in a notice Monday to people impacted by the incident. Oracle has since released a security patch for the flaw.
“Universities like Harvard have a lot of valuable information like personal information about powerful people – politics, influencers, executives – and we know bo
th criminals and countries target these institutions,” said Sergey Shykevich, threat intelligence manager at the Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.
With breaches at Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia and Dartmouth, more than half of the Ivy League — five out of eight schools — have now experienced cyberattacks. Princeton officials said in a state
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ment they have no reason to believe the hackers’ motivation behind the Nov. 10 breach was political. The databases accessed by the hackers didn’t include financial information but many of the individuals in the databases are high-net-worth individuals.
The cyber incidents have occurred while the schools face immense political pressure from the White House over issues like charges of antisemitism, admissions, criticisms of lack of viewpoint diversity and support for diversity programs. The Trump administration has frozen billions in research funds, thr
eatened accreditation and targeted international students.
The White House is trying to link federal funding to new restrictions on hiring, admissions, and tuition, a deal that several prominent schools including the University of
Pennsylvania have declined. The Trump administration said it is “close to finalizing” negotiations with Harvard.
The University of Pennsylvania declined to comment. Dartmouth, Harvard and Princeton didn’t respond to requests for comment.
It isn’t clear if the same hacker conducted every breach. But attackers used the same tactics at Harvard, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania. They also targeted similar data, and the incidents occurred in relatively rapid succession. The intruders who hit Dartmouth stole files in August, the school said in the notification letter.