- The NYU website has recently been degraded to show data alleging racism at university
- The files have exposed sensitive information on millions of students
- The University’s IT team attenuated the attack in three hours
A hacking group qualifying as a “computer operations” hit the University of New York website (NYU) in order to exhibit the alleged university racism – but also exposed sensitive information on millions of NYU candidates.
The NYU website has been degraded, and instead of the usual home page, displayed three graphs showing what the group claims to be the SAT SAT scores of NYU, ACT scores and GPA for cycle 2024-2025.
The group recalled that the Supreme Court had killed “positive action” in 2023, but that the NYU “continued anyway”, and that the data show that the test scores and the GPA admitted average for Asian and Caucasian candidates were higher, compared to Hispanic and Black candidates.
Sensitive data leaks
Positive action is a policy designed to promote opportunities for historically marginalized groups, in particular in education and employment, considering factors such as race or sex in admissions and hiring decisions.
In the United States, the Supreme Court effectively put an end to a positive action based on the breed in college admissions on June 29, 2023, with its decision in students for fair admissions c. Harvard and students for equitable admissions c. University of North Carolina.
But that’s where it still worsened. The four CSV files accessible on the website have revealed admission data to the NYU since 1989, including 3 million applications admitted to students, demographic data, the city, postal codes and citizens. In addition, the CSVS has also shown current application data with information such as rejected students, financial assistance, early decision -making students and information on brothers and sisters and parents.
The record Said that the group has tried to explain the files so that students cannot be identified, but failed, according to Zack Ganot, one of the people performing databreach.com. Complete names, addresses, telephone numbers, markups, email addresses, were all exposed.
Ganot has downloaded the database on its platform, allowing students to check if their information has leaned. More details can be found here.
The degradation lasted approximately two hours, after which the university’s computer team managed to regain control.
