CORAL GABLES, FLA. (WSVN) - The University of Miami has confirmed they are investigating a data security incident involving a third-party provider.
According to the Miami Hurricane, the school’s student newspaper, student information may have been compromised as part of the incident, and the school was also hit by a ransom request.
Faculty were first alerted to the incident in an email sent out Wednesday night.
The Miami Hurricane reports the email contained no specific information on what information was compromised. The paper sources an initial report by Bleepingcomputer.com that states student’s grades and social security numbers were posted onto the internet.
The university has sent out a statement regarding the incident, which reads:
“The University of Miami is currently investigating a data security incident involving Accellion, a third-party provider of hosted file transfer services.
We take data security seriously and data protection is a top priority. As soon as we became aware of the incident, we took immediate action to investigate and contain it. We also retained leading cybersecurity experts to assist with our investigation. We have reported the incident to law enforcement and are cooperating with their investigation. Based on our investigation to date, the incident was limited to the Accellion server used for secure file transfers and did not compromise other University of Miami systems or affect outside systems linked to the University of Miami’s network.
We understand that the Accellion security incident affected multiple federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government organizations, as well as private industry organizations and businesses including those in the medical, legal, telecommunications, finance, higher education, retail, and energy sectors.
While we believe based on our investigation to date that the incident is limited to the Accellion server used for secure file transfers, we continue to enhance our cybersecurity program to further safeguard our systems from cyber threats. We continue to serve our University community consistent with our commitment to education, research, innovation, and service.”
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