Unknown hackers invaded servers in two Tufts computer labs in late February.
The Mugar Computer Lab at the Fletcher School suffered an attack, as did the Medford/Somerville campus' Eaton Computer Lab, though to a lesser degree.
The University's Information Technology Services (ITS) needed a few days to resolve the problems caused by the hack, but all systems are now working smoothly.
Jeff Weiner, Manager of Instructional Services for ITS, said he did not know who was behind the hack. "This is something we don't know and if I did, I would have to report it to the Tufts Police," he said.
Weiner confirmed that, in the case of the Mugar Lab, the hack affected the H-drive, part of the server where students can save their personal work in the computer lab. The hack also affected students' ability to log on to the server while new security measures were being installed.
Though to a lesser extent, the Eaton Lab also suffered from the work of hackers. "We were able to restore this environment with limited downtime and install a firewall in front of the lab," Weiner said. Firewalls prevent unauthorized users from accessing private networks.
ITS also installed a new firewall for the Mugar Lab. These firewalls were provided by ITS independently from the University.
According to Ken Varnum, IT Manager & Associate Librarian at the Ginn Library, repairs in the Mugar Lab took place from Feb. 23 through Feb. 25. During this time, the lab was closed.
On Feb. 23, students did not have access to the server for three hours, and service was down all day on Feb. 24 and 25. Fletcher students did not have classes on the last two days of repairs.
"ITS handled the situation extremely well, responding quickly and minimizing the impact on students by scheduling the H-drive outage during days at Fletcher when classes were not being held," Varnum said.
Fletcher students were asked to take any necessary actions to save their work.
"We announced the closings several times ... and advised students to make copies of necessary work so they would have access to those files during the repair," Varnum said.
Weiner would not give an exact dollar amount to the cost of fixing the damage caused by the hackers. "It would be difficult to define a cost for this," he said. "Let me just say that the reconstruction of the lab in a more secure environment was worth the money and the time spent, which is a cost that most people don't consider."
Fletcher student Carmit Keddem said the incident was an unwelcome interruption. "We didn't lose anything," Keddem said, "It was inconvenient, though ... it's kind of a pain to not be able to access previously saved work."
Keddem, who is currently working on her thesis, said she saves work both on her home computer and the Mugar computers.
Students who did most of their work at home were not affected by the hack. Yevgeny Bendersky, a Fletcher student and Teaching Assistant for this semester's Introduction to International Relations course, said he uses his home desktop computer to do his work.
"I purposefully did not utilize the Mugar Lab to any great extent from the beginning, so that my work would not be affected ... [so] my work did not suffer at all," Bendersky said.
