It is SO mean to target colleges and their support systems. It is an attack on our future.
It's so mean to target colleges and college support systems. The employees are already low paid, over-worked, and just trying to help people. The students are working towards bettering their lives which, in turn, betters the world. All these hackers are doing is makaing the world harder and worse for a LOT of people. As if anyone needs that right now.
As a college staff person working in data systems, I have spent the last 12 years battling hackers. Most of it is for financial aid money, other times to sell information, but some of it is just to be mean. It's not like colleges have money to spare. Our budgets have been sliced. My school gets less than 1/3 of the state budget that it got 10 years ago. We're already bone dry.
Why not hack private corporations with actual money? Morons. This one hack will take up the next 2 years of my worklife. As if I didn't already have 2 full time jobs.
A couple of years ago they targeted my school and were able to destroy multiple systems - not our main student information system but it was close. It took years for us to recover. And this was right when COVID started.
And, when I earned my MS degree they targeted my school the week of finals and prevented me from getting my final grades and degree for 6 extra months. It costs me 6 months of a raise at work. Imagine how much damage they are doing in total.
In fact, right now, instead of being downstairs with my family I am manually reviewing college admission applications and determining individually which ones I think are fake based on multiple criteria including pattern recognition, logic, knowledge of my geographical area, etc. The fake ones get flagged and have to come into a campus physically to verify themselves in person. We used to allow Zoom calls, but now they can impersonate people using AI.
I could go on all day. This has become my life.
Sorry if typos. I'm working.
Edit: Imagine the impact on students. They are already SO overwhelmed. The panic, not knowing if they will pass, graduate, etc. While their schools are trying to figure out what to do and how to communicate (without getting into legal trouble). It's a delicate balance.
HEY STUDENTS - we are doing everything we can to make things right - please believe in your school staff - we care A LOT!!