Kean website back online after repeated hacks

By: Rebecca Panico | Published Dec. 26, 2015

Kean’s website became operational once again on Dec. 23 after it had been  breached several times starting Dec. 19 by a hacker, the university announced in an email blast. 

“None of Kean’s mission-critical operations such as financial and record-management systems, KeanWise or the University’s e-mail system were impacted,” the university said in an email blast on Dec. 20.

To ensure that Kean.edu remains secure, the Office of Computer and Information Services (OCIS) at Kean will make changes to the login for administrative access, the university said in a statement. As a precaution, the most recent files  from the website are still being checked for malicious code.

In a statement, the university claimed that its website, which is hosted by an external company known as Rackspace, had been hacked three times by a group operating out of Algeria, a country on the continent of Africa.

One of the hacked messages, which has been edited to remove profanities, read: “Do You Feel Safe ? Hacked by Red hell sofyan 2 nd time in 24 H F— Usa f— Israel f— France free Syria Free Palestine”.

The university called the message “despicable” and disabled the website once it learned of the breach, though KeanWise, Blackboard and Kean email remained unaffected and operational.

Kean University police were working closely with the Department of Homeland Security and the New Jersey State Police to address the situation, the university said in a statement.

A Twitter account, Red Hell Sofyan, posted articles relating to the Kean hack, and on Dec. 15 posted links to additional websites that had been infiltrated. The hacked websites posted on the Twitter account displayed messages that claimed to be Red Hell Sofyan.  The last post on the Twitter account was made around 10 p.m. on Dec. 15. 

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