{"id":125,"date":"2013-10-09T12:51:20","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T16:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/paschalidis\/?p=125"},"modified":"2015-06-12T16:51:04","modified_gmt":"2015-06-12T20:51:04","slug":"bu-research-universities-hit-by-international-cyber-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/paschalidis\/2013\/10\/09\/bu-research-universities-hit-by-international-cyber-attacks\/","title":{"rendered":"BU, research universities hit by international cyber attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Drew Schwartz<\/span><\/p>\n

One of Boston University\u2019s public web pages suffered a cyber attack from an unidentified, internationally-based source last week, said BU\u2019s Information Security Team\u00a0Executive Director Quinn Shamblin.<\/p>\n

Shamblin said the attack was directed at the search bar function on one of BU\u2019s web pages. He said the attack caused the web page\u2019s service to slow down, but there was no indication whether the indivdiual or group responsible stole any of BU\u2019s information.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt [the attack] was a particular group having found a form on BU servers,\u201d Shamblin said. \u201cThey were trying to see if they could get that form to give them information that they shouldn\u2019t have had.\u201d<\/p>\n

A cyber attack is any event where an external agency or person tries to use or gain access to resources in an unauthorized way, Shamblin said. Cyber attackers usually target the intellectual property of governmental, corporate or university web pages.<\/p>\n

After a barrage of cyber attacks hit American research universities this past summer, campuses across the nation have been forced to tighten Internet security measures, according to a July article in The New York Times. Shamblin said BU\u2019s network occasionally such \u00a0cyber attacks, and that\u00a0InfoSec utilizes several defense techniques to ensure the university\u2019s information is secured.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get attacks all the time because that\u2019s just how the Internet works,\u201d Shamblin said. \u201cWe [InfoSec] work with the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] \u2026 U.S. Secret Service \u2026 local law enforcement as needed \u2026 We will call them as appropriate with full cooperation of our general counsel and appropriate other groups inside of the university.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shamblin said BU students and faculty should keep their computers\u2019 operating systems updated to defend themselves against these attacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure that if somebody wants to try to get access to sensitive information \u2014 or wants to try to break into your personal machine \u2014 they have to go through multiple layers of security,\u201d Shamblin said. \u201cThe point of it is to make it such a pain in the butt that they [cyber attackers] won\u2019t waste their time, and they\u2019ll go somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christos Cassandras, head of BU\u2019s Divisions of Systems Engineering\u00a0said, although BU\u2019s InfoSec department successfully stopped last week\u2019s cyber attack, they may not always know when their system is being attacked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be that somebody had sent those malicious [programs] into your computer two weeks ago, and you still don\u2019t know anything about it,\u201d Cassandras said. \u201cThere are so many different ways [to execute cyber attacks] and new ones are being invented every day. It\u2019s a little bit like the Cold War \u2026 As soon as somebody discovers a new weapon, we find out the counter to this weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cassandras said although university officials have taken measures to ensure the safety of their servers, unattended computers at BU are highly vulnerable to attackers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest threat, I think, is that we have a lot of computers in universities, including BU, that are sitting around in labs and doing things without continuous supervision,\u201d Cassandras said. \u201cDuring that time that the computer isn\u2019t being supervised, someone can take over that computer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ionnas Paschalidis, co-director of BU\u2019s Center for Information and Systems Engineering, said cyber security is a growing concern for universities such as BU that are involved in classified research.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vast majority of research at universities eventually is being made public \u2026. But before they publish, they don\u2019t want their research to be made public,\u201d Paschalidis said. \u201cIt\u2019s a growing concern not only in universities, but throughout our society as we depend much more on services that are online \u2026 Every aspect of our lives is now connected to a network one way or the other. This creates much more serious consequences for cyber-attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Daily Free Press<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Drew Schwartz One of Boston University\u2019s public web pages suffered a cyber attack from an unidentified, internationally-based source last week, said BU\u2019s Information Security Team\u00a0Executive Director Quinn Shamblin. Shamblin said the attack was directed at the search bar function on one of BU\u2019s web pages. He said the attack caused the web page\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2469,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/paschalidis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/paschalidis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/paschalidis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/paschalidis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2469"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/paschalidis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/paschalidis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":850,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/paschalidis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions\/850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/paschalidis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/paschalidis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/paschalidis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}