A cyber snooping attack on the network of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) has exposed data of around 75,000 students, teachers and staff.
UWM officials believe the hack attack could be an attempt to snoop at the several research projects underway at the school.
A report said that the staff discovered a malware remotely installed on the school’s database system which was used for scanning and viewing documents. The malware was first found on 25 May and is believed to have been active for a "short period of time."
Names and social security numbers of current and former students and of employees are at risk. Official have said that financial and academic data are safe. However, the school said that a probe has not found any evidence that data was viewed or stolen so far.
UWM vice-chancellor for university relations Tom Luljak said the school is a research institution with a significant number of projects under way and it is theorised that this may have been an attempt to look at work being done.
"We don’t believe anyone got access to the image bank," Luljak said. "There is no evidence that the hackers actually looked at or retrieved any information."
Luljack added that the infected server was immediately shut down after the malware was detected.
The school reported the matter to law enforcement authorities and it was learnt on 30 June that a database had been exposed.
"Because of the nature of the malware, our concern was it would provide access to other servers," Luljak said.
"We think it might have been more of a fishing operation."
"Our responsibility, we believe, is to be completely transparent to those affected," Luljack said.
The school is sending letters to those believed to be affected by the security breach and has set up a special information page for those affected.
