50,000 students change password after hack

[Erica Absetz <eabsetz () opensecurityfoundation org>]

http://www.thelocal.de/education/20130212-47909.html#.URptRV3WgTw

Repeated hack attacks have forced over 50,000 students in western
Germany to change their university account passwords. Culprits already
gained access to a number of inboxes since January, it was reported on
Tuesday.

The Ruhr University in Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia, has been the
target of a series of hacker attacks over the past three weeks, said
the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. At least 16 inboxes belonging to
staff and students are known to have been accessed.

Experts have traced the IP address of the hackers to Russia, but
university administration admitted that “whether the owners of the
Russian computer are actually responsible for the attack is
questionable,” Brigitte Wojcieszynski, head of the department for
information security, told the paper.

Students have all received an email informing them of the attacks and
recommending they change their passwords to help prevent hackers from
gaining their information. What they could be after and why remains
unclear, said Wojcieszynski.
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