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College admissions hacker collared in time
An online theft of admission information at a Beijing-based college has sounded an alarm for those supervising the month-long autumn State-run universities' enrollment that started on Saturday. The suspect, arrested late last month, allegedly hacked away more than 57,000 items of online data containing names, addresses and other private information about applicants to the Beijing Science and Technology Vocational College. In a blackmail attempt, the man phoned the leaders of the private college located in Changping District and asked for 20 million yuan (US$2.4 million) in exchange. Zhou Mengkui, vice-president of the college, said the loss of so much information seriously affected the admissions process for the autumn session, which will start after State-run universities complete their enrollment, according to a Beijing Times report. If the stolen data had been deleted or divulged, the college would have suffered a loss of about 30 million yuan (US$3.5 million), and the total damage would have been as high as 150 million yuan (US$18 million), the report quoted Zhou as saying. Since the enrollment to private educational institutions is separated from the unified admission system in Beijing, the online theft did not affect the on-going enrollment of State-run universities and colleges. According to the Beijing Higher Education Enrollment Office, universities and colleges have already enhanced fire walls against hackers' attacks, which have occurred many times in previous nationwide enrollment sessions. All 530-plus State-maintained institutions that recruit students in Beijing this year will select their applicants using the Internet, which requires top network security, the office said. Wang Jun, a Beijing Normal University official, said his university has set up a special technical support team to safeguard enrollment. Wang said the technical staff set limits on IP addresses so only designated computers can access the admissions system. And the university sets up an optical cable from its computer centre to the admissions office, Wang added. The Beijing Science and Technology Vocational College has also enhanced its online security efforts to prevent such a theft from happening again. The suspected Internet thief is a 22-year-old native of Central China's Hunan Province. He confessed that he made use of a loophole of the college's telenet system to enter its network, according to police. |
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