A notorious hacker group has claimed responsibility for last year's data breaches at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), releasing data it claims was stolen from both schools.
The group known as ShinyHunters published more than 1 million records from universities on its private leak site on Wednesday, using them to blackmail victims.
In November, UPenn confirmed a data breach of “a select group of information systems related to Penn development and alumni activities.” At the time, the hackers also sent emails from the university's official address to alumni informing them of the hack.
The university claimed the breach was the result of social engineering. Social engineering is an attack that often involves a hacker pretending to be someone else and tricking them into doing something they wouldn't normally do. On its official breach disclosure webpage, which is now offline, UPenn did not say exactly what kind of data the hackers stole, simply saying that the cybercriminals accessed “systems related to Penn's development and alumni activities.”
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TechCrunch verified some of the dataset by checking with alumni and public records, including matching the data to student ID numbers.
In late November, Harvard University also confirmed a breach of its alumni system and attributed it to a voice phishing attack, an attack in which hackers trick targets into clicking a link or opening an attachment during a voice call.
Harvard said the stolen data included email addresses, phone numbers, home and work addresses, event attendance, details of donations to the university, and other biographical information related to the university's fundraising and alumni engagement efforts.
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The data released by ShinyHunters, seen by TechCrunch, appears to match the type of information both universities announced were stolen last year.
The hackers claimed they released the stolen data because the university refused to pay a ransom to stop it. Cybercriminals like ShinyHunters often try to blackmail victims by demanding payment in exchange for not publishing the stolen data, and if the victim refuses to pay, they publish the data online.
During the UPenn breach, the hackers appeared politically motivated, specifically expressing dissatisfaction with affirmative action policies. “We hire and embrace fools because we love our heritage and our donors, but we allow unconditional affirmative action,” the hackers wrote in an email to alumni.
It is not known whether ShinyHunters has any political motives. The hackers did not respond to questions about why they included that language in the email.
Ron Ozio, a spokesperson for the University of Pennsylvania, told TechCrunch that the university is “analyzing the data and will notify individuals if required by applicable privacy regulations.”
Harvard University did not respond to a request for comment.