China hackers make Penn State unplug engineering computers

Pennsylvania State University, which develops sensitive technology for the Navy, disclosed Friday that Chinese hackers have been sifting through the computers of its engineering school for more than two years.

One of the country's largest and most productive research universities, Penn State offers a potential treasure trove of technology being developed with partners for commercial applications. The breach suggests that spies could be using universities as a back door to U.S. commercial and defense secrets.

The hackers are so deeply embedded that the engineering college's computer network will be taken off-line for several days while investigators work to eject the intruders.

"This was an advanced attack against our College of Engineering by very sophisticated threat actors," Penn State president Eric Barron said in a letter to professors and students. "This is an incredibly serious situation, and we are devoting all necessary resources to help the college recover as quickly as possible."

The FBI notified Penn State of the breach in November 2014, spawning a months-long investigation that found two separate groups of hackers.

The first group has been linked by investigators to the Chinese government, according to a person familiar with the probe. The second group has not been identified.

The investigation and remediation efforts have cost Penn State millions of dollars, said provost Nicholas Jones.

U.S. engineering schools - including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon, and Johns Hopkins - have been among the top targets of Chinese hacking for years.

These forays have been for both commercial and defense purposes, and universities have struggled to secure their computers against the advanced attacks.

Among Penn State's specialties is aerospace engineering, which has commercial and defense applications important to China's government. The university is also home to Penn State's Applied Research Laboratory, which works mainly for the military.

While the lab is not part of the College of Engineering, Jones said, experts there have been alerted to the breach and are investigating whether the hackers could have moved there from those networks.