The Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences website appears to have been the subject of a major security breach, as server backups, site databases and contact databases are leaked to BitTorrent. The 125MB file is currently being tracked by The Pirate Bay.

Early reports indicate that a Harvard University website has become the victim of a major security breach. A torrent currently tracked by The Pirate Bay which links to a 125mb .zip file, claims to be the backup from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences website.

The backup -seeded from a Harvard IP address (and others)- carries many files, passwords and what appears to be a full directory structure for the site. Three other major database files are mentioned specifically, details as follows:

1. joomla.sql - claims to be the database for the Harvard site

2. contacts.sql - claims to be a database of contacts

3. hgs.sql - stated as ‘other minor thing’

The .NFO file included with the release says in broken English: “Maybe you don’t like it but this is to demonstrate that persons like tgatton(admin of the server) in they don’t know how to secure a website.” Read the rest of this entry »