Harvard Email Hacked, University Warns

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
Harvard Email Hacked, University Warns

© Joseph Williams / Wikimedia Commons

Harvard University has enough trouble as a case about racial discrimination in its admissions policy goes to court. Today, it sent an email to graduates and faculty warning that some of Harvard’s own email addresses had been hacked.

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Alumni with @post.harvard.edu or @alumni.harvard.edu addresses were warned about phishing. The university’s advice:

First, do not pay the ransom.

Second, if a password is mentioned in the email, change the password mentioned anywhere it is still in use.

Third, delete the phishing message you received. Do not click on any links in it or open any attachments that might have been included. This is how the phishers collect more personal data.

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The university recommended that people use unique passwords on each site where they must have one. This would include sites like Netflix, Amazon.com or travel booking sites. Another suggestion is that people use password management to enable two-factor/two-step features on personal accounts where it is offered.

As a guide, the university described the breach further:

[T]he scams we’re seeing now are variants of a known phishing attempt where the people contacting you get your password from well-known data breaches and then use it to make you believe your computer or other personal account has been compromised. In this type of scam phishers include one of your legitimate passwords (current or past) in their email to you, making you more likely to engage. In reality, this password was unearthed during a previous data breach that may even be years old.

People with Harvard educations should know that already.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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