Harvard site hacked and leaked on BitTorrent
Published by Evil Bee Monday, 18 February 2008 18:57
The Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences website appears to have been the subject of a major security breach, as server backups, site databases and contact databases are leaked to BitTorrent. The 125MB file is currently being tracked by The Pirate Bay.
Early reports indicate that a Harvard University website has become the victim of a major security breach. A torrent currently tracked by The Pirate Bay which links to a 125mb .zip file, claims to be the backup from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences website.
A note attached to the torrent says that the file contains a backup of the site -- including some contacts files and other files associated with Joomla, an open-source content management system -- along with other various bits. It appears to be legitimate.
The backup -seeded from a Harvard IP address (and others)- carries many files, passwords and what appears to be a full directory structure for the site. Three other major database files are mentioned specifically, details as follows:
- joomla.sql - claims to be the database for the Harvard site
- contacts.sql - claims to be a database of contacts
- hgs.sql - stated as ‘other minor thing’
The .NFO file included with the release says in broken English: “Maybe you don’t like it but this is to demonstrate that persons like tgatton(admin of the server) in they don’t know how to secure a website.”
A file included with the release labeled password.txt carries a message:
Thomas gatton….stupid people, you don’t use a secure password
username: Password:
tgatton *removed by Evil Bee*
jmartinez *removed by Evel Bee*
This appears to be a reference to Thomas Gatton, Systems Administrator and User Support Specialist at Harvard.
This is not the first time Harvard has been hacked. In 2005, a man using the name ‘Brookbond’ helped applicants to several universities get access to admissions records on their websites, an action described by the school as a “serious breach of trust”.
These files certainly appear to be ‘the real deal’. More on this breaking news story as we get it.