When a hacker broke into the computer system that manages accounts and purchases for USM’s Portland bookstore last semester, computing technologies staff figured it was a random act and they were right.
According to Stephen Houser, director of database applications, the individual, or group, broke into the system and then posted an email onto a bulletin board owned by the perpetrator(s), which talked about the hacking. Houser traced the hackers to a web site to Romania, but did not pursue the investigation any further. Houser said he assumed it would not be worth the University’s time or money to prosecute the perpetrators.
“It’s incredibly unlikely that they knew what they broke into. It’s like a random act of violence…like seeing a wallet on a bench and grabbing it,” said Houser.
After hackers broke into the system, the bookstore called the credit card companies to look for anything unusual. It was determined some cards were charged twice for the same purchase. USM told the companies they would pay any charges for overdrafts students may have acquired. No credit card numbers were reported unlawfully used.
Following their own investigation, the University hired TrustWave Corporation, an independent third party to conduct their own investigation. Director of the Bookstore Nicole Piaget said credit card companies could refuse to work with a business if they think the business’ system is not secure. The TrustWave Corporation specializes in network security.
TrustWave was on campus for two days in November working with USM to determine how the hackers got in the system, what information they got access to and how to prevent further exploits, said Mert Nickerson, director of Academic Computing Technologies.
TrustWave also interviewed Piaget and Houser and asked them questions like when did they notice the system was broken into, what were the symptoms, what steps did they take when they found out and what evidence had been collected said Houser.
It turned out Houser had already uncovered the email address used by the hackers during USM’s investigation, but couldn’t tell TrustWave because it would taint their investigation. Once TrustWave determined the source on their own they said the Web-site linked to the posted messages actually contained photos of the alleged hackers.
Houser said before hiring TrustWave they looked at other companies. One company wanted $6,000 for their work. He didn’t know how much TrustWave charged, but did say it wasn’t a trivial amount of money.
Nickerson didn’t know the cost of TrustWave’s services but said, “It’s good though to know that an outside company whose business is security gave us a clean bill of health.”
The system has more security features now and computing technologies staff say they are one hundred percent confident nothing like this will happen again. When asked what those features were, considering the situation, Nickerson didn’t think it appropriate to say.