Penn State's College of Engineering Network Disabled in Response to Cyberattack

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Penn State College of Engineering has been the target of two sophisticated cyberattacks conducted by so-called “advanced persistent threat” actors, University officials announced today. The FireEye cybersecurity forensic unit Mandiant, which was hired by Penn State after the breach was discovered, has confirmed that at least one of the two attacks was carried out by a threat actor based in China, using advanced malware to attack systems in the college.

In a coordinated and deliberate response by Penn State, the College of Engineering’s computer network has been disconnected from the Internet and a large-scale operation to securely recover all systems is underway. Contingency plans are in place to allow engineering faculty, staff and students to continue in as much of their work as possible while significant steps are taken to upgrade affected computer hardware and fortify the network against future attack. The outage is expected to last for several days, and the effects of the recovery will largely be limited to the College of Engineering.

To learn more about the incident, including information for affected faculty, staff and students, visit http://SecurePennState.psu.edu/.

Information posted from

http://news.psu.edu/story/357656/2015/05/15/administration/college-engineering-network-disabled-response-sophisticated

Message from President Barron

http://news.psu.edu/story/357654/2015/05/15/administration/message-president-barron-cybersecurity