The University issued the following message to faculty, staff and students on Aug. 21:
Dear Members of the Emory Community:
On Aug. 8 the Emory community was notified that the university is investigating a breach of its information technology infrastructure. Additional security measures have been put in place over the past several weeks enabling us to take the next major step in safeguarding Emory's information system:
At this stage in the overall plan to protect against this breach, everyone with an Emory University netID/username must change the password to that account, even if you changed it after receiving the Aug. 8 message:
• All students are required to change their password by noon, Tuesday, Sept. 3
• All faculty, staff and individuals with sponsored accounts are required to change their password by noon, Tuesday, Sept. 10
You may update your password by following the “Change Your Password” link on the Emory homepage.
If your password has not been changed by these deadlines, you will be locked out from your Emory accounts, such as email, PeopleSoft and Blackboard, and will need to contact your local IT support for unlocking assistance. Students who are locked out must go to the Cox Hall Computing Center in order to regain access to Emory accounts.
In addition, if you use your Emory password for any personal accounts, such as accessing your bank account or credit cards online, Emory recommends that you also change those passwords.
Emory is not aware at this time of any protected health information or Social Security numbers having been compromised; there is no indication at this time that Emory Healthcare IT systems have been affected.
Information security is one of Emory’s highest technology priorities and the university is continually upgrading its systems to defend against cyber-attacks. Like many institutions, Emory repels millions of attempted attacks on its information systems each day. The university is working closely with information security consultants and law enforcement to determine the source and any potential impact of this breach.
Because of the ongoing nature of the investigation, we cannot provide any more details at this juncture, but will provide updates to the community in due course. Thank you for your patience and support during this process.
Sincerely,
Rich Mendola
Enterprise Chief Information Officer
Brad Sanford
Chief Information Security Officer