Penn State Takes Network Offline After Attack From China
Penn State University has been forced to disconnect one of its college networks from the internet after discovering a major cyber-attack on its systems coming from China.
In a lengthy statement posted on Friday, the university claimed it had been alerted about an attack on its College of Engineering by the FBI back in November.
It then enlisted the help of FireEye-owned Mandiant to carry out an “intensive” forensic investigation on its systems, while its own IT department took steps to preserve sensitive data. “In order to protect the college’s network infrastructure as well as critical research data from a malicious attack, it was important that the attackers remained unaware of our efforts to investigate and prepare for a full-scale remediation,” said Nicholas Jones, executive vice president and provost at Penn State.
