Dozens of Universities Hacked by Team Ghostshell (Project Westwind)

[Nick Giacobe <nxg13 () PSU EDU>]

I'm sure you've all heard, but in case you have not, dozens of universities
across the globe have been hacked into by hactivists from a group called
Team Ghostshell. You will want to check to see if your organization has been
affected.

 

articles.philly.com/2012-10-03/news/34240286_1_penn-officials-twitter-univer
sity

The University of Pennsylvania was among dozens of universities worldwide
that were hacked and had student and employee records posted online this
week.

Penn officials issued an email Wednesday confirming the breach, which they
said was limited in scope.

"Fortunately, no sensitive information that could result in identify theft,
such as Social Security numbers, PennKey passwords, bank account numbers or
credit card numbers are contained in the database that was compromised," the
email said.

Other universities that were hacked include Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Purdue,
Rutgers, Cornell, and Johns Hopkins. The University of Tokyo and Cambridge
were among the those breached outside the United States.

 

http://betabeat.com/2012/10/hackers-team-ghostshell-leak-120000-records-from
-100-major-universities-in-project-westwind/

Team GhostShell
<http://betabeat.com/2012/08/hackers-strike-back-team-ghostshell-claims-mass
ive-data-leak-of-cia-wall-street-info/>  returned late Monday with Project
WestWind <http://pastebin.com/AQWhu8Ek> : a leak of 120,000 records from 100
major universities around the world.

Team GhostShell is the hacking group behind Project Hellfire
<http://betabeat.com/2012/08/hackers-strike-back-team-ghostshell-claims-mass
ive-data-leak-of-cia-wall-street-info/> , which launched in August this
year. Project Hellfire lifted 1 million accounts from 100 websites around
the world, compromising data from the CIA and from Wall Street.

The hacked data leaked in Project WestWind does indeed appear to come from a
who's who of major learning institutions. They include Harvard, Cambridge,
Princeton, Tokyo University, Cornell and New York University..

http://pastebin.com/AQWhu8Ek

 

We have set out to raise awareness towards the changes made in today's
education, how new laws imposed by politicians affect us, our economy and
overall, our way of life. How far we have ventured from learning valuable
skills that would normally help us be prepared in life, to just, simply
memorizing large chunks of text in exchange for good grades. How our very
own traditions are heard less and less, losing touch with who we truly are.
Slowly casting the identities, that our ancestors fought to protect, into
exile. - TGS .

 

 

 

 

---

Nick Giacobe

Research Technologist V and Ph.D Candidate

College of Information Sciences and Technology

Penn State University

101 Information Sciences and Technology Building

University Park, PA 16802