University of Kashmir launches investigation after notice of sale of students’ data on dark web

The university said the alleged breach was analyzed and a preliminary analysis found that the data was not tampered with.

The University of Kashmir (KU) on Wednesday set up a special IT team to look into possible gray hackers who hack for fun and tried to put the data of thousands of college students up for sale for $250 on the dark web. recently.

Sources said the IT cell of the University of Kashmir received an email on Tuesday alerting them to data theft and likely sale on the dark web. The alert contained data sheets related to semester examination forms of undergraduate students with complete credentials of students pursuing various courses in the University of Kashmir.

“Our IT team’s investigation has so far found that no grade data or private student data has been highlighted in the spreadsheets. No data of teachers related to their services and salaries is at risk,” Dr told The Hindu. Maroof Qadri, Director of Information Technology and Support Systems.

It said there was no data modification, deletion or update of thousands of student and teacher details. “We did a comparison to check for any data manipulation. Nothing has been found yet,” he added.

“The text file that caused the warning is being seriously scanned.” This particular data is quarantined for now. The associated services are also separated for the time being,” said Dr. Qadri.

The University of Kashmir said in a statement that the alleged breach was analyzed and preliminary analysis found that the data was not tampered with.

“Any breach of the read data (which is already available in the public domain) is analyzed in detail and depending on the analysis, the university will take further action and take appropriate legal action accordingly,” a Kashmir University spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, the University of Kashmir is preparing to move the data to an infrastructure with a better security system soon, officials said.