University

Hacker attacks URegina website

Prof says breach may lead to more secure webserver

The University of Regina’s website is back up and running after it was attacked by a hacker Monday.

A screen shot of the U of R homepage in the Leader-Post showed that the perpetrator boasted their job with the messages “Hacked by Security Bus” and “Sorry admin your site has been hacked”.

Barb Pollock, U of R vice-president of external relations, told the Leader-Post that the site was down from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m Monday after it was discovered that it had been compromised early that afternoon.

Pollock said that while having the website down may have been inconvenient, the hacking was “no great concern at all.”

“It was a very small thing. (There was) no access through to other parts of our system. So there was no confidential information compromised at all,” she said, explaining that the breach didn’t appear affect the university’s more sensitive information such as financial, employment, and student records.

David Gerhard, a professor of computer science at the university told CBC News that he thought the scare may help improve the website’s security.

“Once people discover these little tiny cracks in security they can be fixed fairly quickly,” Gerhard said. “But if they don’t get discovered they can be exploited on a long-term scale by people who aren’t very nice.”

While the website was being fixed, staff and students were able to access services such as Webmail and online course information through a temporary website provided by the university, according to Global News.

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