Overview

• A sophisticated hacktivist infiltrated Columbia’s network on June 24, causing widespread outages and locking students and staff out of email, coursework and video conference tools.
• The attacker exfiltrated identification numbers, citizenship statuses and admissions decisions for more than two million applicants in a politically motivated probe of affirmative action policies.
• During the breach, images of President Donald Trump appeared on monitors across the Manhattan campus, though Columbia says any link to the data theft remains unclear.
• By June 29, the university had restored most services and reports no further suspicious activity on its IT systems.
• Columbia plans to notify every individual whose data may have been compromised as its cyberforensics partner continues to assess the full extent of the breach.