Hacker Victim: University of Arizona

A University of Arizona computer server containing sensitive financial transaction information and university employee personal data has been breached by external hacker(s).  There is no preliminary information to suggest the full scope of the breach, but the university and FBI continue to investigate this incident.

Tucson Citizen
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/38055.php

SC Magazine
http://www.scmagazine.com.au/news/44180,hacker-cracks-university-of-arizona-network.aspx

Comments

[Jaime Chanaga]

Mike:

I have no other information to suggest what you are saying is correct. The only information I referred to on this blog was the information contained in the article I linked to.

I'm not going to dive into the partisan politics or political correctness of the business practice by some organizations of offshoring U.S. jobs. The rest of my comment in response to your comment is not directed at the University of Arizona—only my thoughts on the industry.

However your comment gives me pause to think about important subjects often overlooked by organizations considering offshoring some of their information technology systems and data. The often overlooked subjects are trust, accountability, confidentiality, and regulatory compliance. I’m not an attorney, nor a legal scholar, however, all of these issues must be carefully vetted and balanced as part of a due diligence process before any organization should attempt to implement any offshoring activities.

Many times we have seen organizations blindly jump into the bottom-line bandwagon of cheap foreign labor offered by IT offshoring entities, only to find the unseen costs of those actions while placing our privacy and data security at risk of theft and abuse.

[Mike N]

Could this attack have anything to do with the UA outsourcing its online auction system for surplus property (which is in the Procurement section mentioned in the Tucson Citizen link) to an outside vendor who subcontracted with a bunch of Eastern European (Bulgarian, Romanian, ?) programmers? I think they started work on this over a year ago... this is the second attack according to the Citizen.