A seasoned “hacktivist” reportedly stole sensitive data from more than two million Columbia University students, applicants and employees in a targeted cyberattack officials believe was politically motivated.
The sophisticated digital activist, who knocked the Ivy League’s systems offline for several hours on June 24, swiped social security numbers, citizenship status, university-issued ID numbers, application decisions, employee salaries, and other private records, Bloomberg News reported.
A university official told The Post the savvy hacker appeared to target specific documents to advance their political agenda.
“We immediately began an investigation with the assistance of leading cybersecurity experts and after substantial analysis determined that the outage was caused by an unauthorized party,” Columbia said in a statement Tuesday.
“We now have initial indications that the unauthorized actor also unlawfully stole data from a limited portion of our network. We are investigating the scope of the apparent theft and will share out findings with the University community as well as anyone whose personal information was compromised.”
The lone intruder behind the massive outage later owned up to the breach in an anonymous message to Bloomberg News, which confirmed it had examined the 1.6-gigabyte haul of stolen files.
The alleged hacker, who declined to reveal their identity to the outlet, said they targeted the embattled Manhattan university to find documents indicating the use of affirmative action in admissions — a practice banned by the Supreme Court last year.
The trove of extracted documents allegedly included 2.5 million applications dating back decades, along with financial aid packages, the outlet reported.
A university official said Columbia’s admissions processes are compliant with the high court’s ruling.
The cyber trespasser told Bloomberg they were able to infiltrate Columbia’s classified information after spending more than two months gaining access to the university’s servers.
The hours-long incident temporarily locked students and faculty out of university systems and caused bizarre images to appear on screens across campus.
An image of President Trump appeared on at least one dorm television on Columbia’s Morningside campus, according to a photo obtained by the Columbia Spectator, the school’s student newspaper.
Columbia quickly restored most systems but is now focused on safeguarding its network and investigating the full extent of the cyberattack, a process officials say “will take time.”
“We know that this news may raise questions and concerns across our community about the scope of the affected personal information. Our team is working toward answers,” University leaders told students and faculty in an email obtained by The Post.
“Moving forward, we will be examining what additional steps we can take and what other safeguards we can implement to prevent something like this from happening again.”
The school also reassured the Columbia community that the Irving Medical Center was not impacted.
Officials said it identified the hacker’s tactics and signature — and hasn’t detected any malicious activity since.
The attack hit the elite school amid its ongoing battle with the Trump administration, which yanked about $400 million in grants and contracts over the institution’s failure to stamp out antisemitism on campus.
