Hacker Used Employee Credentials to Breach University of Alaska Data

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University of Alaska officials say someone used an employee’s credentials to hack into a network drive that contained private information like Social Security numbers of more than 5,400 students at the Mat-Su campus.

Officials said in a release that there is no evidence that there was any data or student information stolen or even accessed.

UA spokeswoman Robbie Graham said that it appears the hacker established a “trust relationship” with a campus employee and convinced the employee to log on to a fraudulent web address using his university username and password.

The university is offering protections to those affected, including helping resolve issues if someone’s identity winds up being compromised from this incident. It wasn’t immediately clear how much this would cost.

The incident happened months ago, but officials only announced the breach thisweek. Graham said it took time for investigators to verify that the system had been hacked and to determine whether any information from the UA data system. was stolen or accessed.