Columbia students’ data stolen in politically motivated cyberattack, university says

A hacker broke into Columbia University’s IT systems last week and stole student data in what officials said was a politically motivated cyberattack.

A university official told Gothamist on Wednesday that the June 24 breach was carried out by a highly sophisticated “hacktivist” who appeared to target specific documents. The incident caused technical outages that temporarily locked students and faculty out of university systems, the officials said. Some operations remained compromised for days.

During the disruption, television screens across Columbia’s Morningside campus in Harlem reportedly displayed images of President Donald Trump, according to the Columbia Spectator, the school’s student newspaper.

A hacker later claimed responsibility in a statement to Bloomberg News, which reported reviewing a 1.6-gigabyte cache of stolen files. The outlet said the data included identification numbers, citizenship status and admissions decisions for more than 2 million applicants.

The purported hacker told Bloomberg the goal was to locate any documents that suggested Columbia continued using affirmative action in its admissions process, despite a Supreme Court ruling last year that banned the practice.

The breach comes amid ongoing tensions between Columbia and the Trump administration, which recently pulled $400 million in federal funding from the university over what it called inaction against antisemitism on campus.

Columbia said it had quickly restored most of its systems and is working with a top-tier cyberforensics firm to assess the scope of the breach. Officials said it could take weeks or months to fully determine what data was stolen and whom it affected.

A Columbia spokesperson said the school still investigating the extent of the data theft and plans to notify the university community, including anyone whose personal information may have been compromised.

The school said it has not observed any further suspicious activity since June 24 but is continuing to monitor its network.

Separately, NYU also reported a cyberattack in June in which multiple Social Security numbers were stolen from individuals on campus.

This is a developing story and may be updated.