UConn hit by cyberattack traced to China

The University of Connecticut (UConn) in the US announced on Friday that their engineering school had been hit by a "cyberattack" originating in China.

"The university is responding to a criminal cyber instrusion through which hackers apparently originating in China gained access to servers at UConn's School of Engineering," said Tom Breen, deputy spokesperson at UConn, in a statement.

The attack was detected by IT personnel at the university's engineering school in March.

However, according to analysis conducted by the university and Dell's SecureWorks, "it was determined that the first penetration of a server…occurred on September 24, 2013."

The university said it has notified around 200 of its research partners in the public and private sector.

UConn believes "personally identifiable information," including social security and credit card numbers, may have been compromised in the attack, though Breen added that there is "no direct evidence" that any data was removed from the university's servers.

Michael Mundrane, UConn's vice provost and chief information officer, said the university "places the highest priority on maintaining the security and integrity of its information technology systems."

"The unfortunate reality is that these types of attacks are becoming more and more common, which requires us to be even more vigilant in protecting our university community," he added.

This is not the first time a cyberattack on US institutions has been reportedly traced to China.

In June, US officials blamed China for a series of cyberattacks targeting the government's Office of Personnel Management, affecting sensitive information of 22.1 million people, although Beijing has denied the allegations.

ls/cmk (Reuters, UConn)