Mississippi State University was the target of a hacking attempt on one of the university’s servers, but Information Technology Services found no secure data was stolen.
On Wednesday, the website Hack Read News posted that information from 535 MSU individuals had been compromised by a Brazilian hacker.
According to a news release, President Mark Keenum directed MSU’s chief information officer to launch an investigation into the incident.
MSU Chief Information Officer Mike Rackley said in a press release most of the information obtained by the hacker is available from existing public domain print or digital university directories.
He said no “social security numbers, credit card information, health information or grades” were compromised.
 MSU’s ITS is notifying users who may have been affected by the incident and working with them to change their account passwords as a precaution.
Sid Salter, director of University Relations, said in a phone interview the information accessed by the hacker was faculty information, not student information.
He also said MSU is constantly working to avoid cyber-attacks on its systems.
“MSU constantly monitors and updates and changes data security and strategies to avoid attacks of this nature,” he said. “Data security is an ongoing battle that rages 24/7, hackers are attempting, not just at Mississippi State, but all over cyberspace to penetrate the system.”
Salter said ITS’s procedure for protecting the university’s servers proved successful in the incident.
“The takeaway from Wednesday was that the system ultimately functioned as it should,” he said. “Secure data, things that actually have an impact on peoples privacy, the ITS upheld that information stayed secure.”
In a news release, Keenum said cyber-crimes are a university concern and MSU is aware of their potential for harm.
“Cyber-crimes and ‘hacking’ plague Fortune 500 companies, the federal government and unfortunately, is a reality in higher education as well,” said Keenum. “We’re very sensitive to the concerns such attacks generate, but at this point we believe that the secure data of these individuals remains safe.”
In the event that a hacker did obtain secure data from MSU faculty or students, Salter said the university would assist individuals whose information was compromised as well as revaluate the security wall protecting secure information on the MSU’s servers.
“The university would have to react just as individuals do when they are victims of identity theft,” he said. “They would do everything possible to help the victims of the hacking and then rebuild the wall to make it stronger and higher.”