China hackers push Penn State offline

"Penn State University, which develops sensitive technology for the U.S. Navy, disclosed Friday that Chinese hackers have been sifting through the computers of its engineering school for more than two years," Bloomberg reports here.

"One of the country's largest and most productive research universities, Penn State offers a potential treasure trove of technology that's already being developed with partners for commercial applications...The hackers are so deeply embedded that the engineering college's computer network will be taken offline for several days while investigators work to eject the intruders."

"This was an advanced attack against our College of Engineering by very sophisticated threat actors," Penn State President Eric Barron told staff and students in a letter. "This is an incredibly serious situation, and we are devoting all necessary resources to help the college recover as quickly as possible." FBI told Penn State of the breach in November 2014.

"The first group (of hackers) has been linked by investigators to the Chinese government...The second group has not been identified... The investigation and remediation efforts have already cost Penn State millions of dollars, said Nicholas Jones, the university provost.

"U.S. engineering schools -- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the California Institute of Technology, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, and Johns Hopkins University -- have been among the top targets of Chinese hacking and other intelligence operations for many years. These forays have been for both commercial and defense purposes, and universities have struggled to secure their computers against these advanced attacks."