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Admissions Website Vandalized By Hacker During Prefrosh Weekend

Pre-frosh weekend is most likely the time of the year when the website of the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid sees its heaviest traffic—and a highly inconvenient time for the site to fall prey to the work of a hacker.

On Friday, a message with the words, “Q vergonha, defaced by USDL, Harvard sux...” appeared on the website that normally displays the home page for the admissions office.

Director of Admissions Marilyn McGrath-Lewis ’70-’73 said the hacker had been identified, but declined to comment on the person’s identity.

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“It’s our understanding that the source from which this hacking occurred was one to which several hundred other hacking jobs can be attributed,” McGrath-Lewis said.

She added that the admissions office was not sure whether the website was hacked into from a foreign site, which might have been implied by the hacker’s message.

The website was offline for at least a day before it was reloaded to the web in its original form.

McGrath-Lewis could not say yesterday exactly how long the website was offline.

“We provide a website for quick, easy access to this information. It’s a form of communication that we have found very helpful, and it’s extremely inconvenient when we can’t rely on that,” McGrath-Lewis said.

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