Breach, Data Security, Vulnerability Management

Johns Hopkins University web server breached; up to 1,300 affected

As many as 1,300 current and former Johns Hopkins University biomedical engineering students' personal information was posted online by an attacker claiming to be affiliated with hacktivist collective Anonymous.

After the university refused to give into extortion threats, the hacker dumped the data, including students' names, email addresses and phone numbers, online, according to The Balitmore Sun.

The attacker gained access to a web server where the Department of Biomedical Engineering held the information. After retrieving the files, they contacted the university saying that if it didn't hand over user ID and password credentials to access the university's network, the details would be put online.

While the breach occurred late in 2013 the university was notified in January when someone disclosed the vulnerability on its server via Twitter, according to a Johns Hopkins statement.

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