Ivy League universities under siege: The cyberattacks targeting Harvard, Princeton and Penn

The Ivy League is the promised land for thousands of high school students, but it has also become a target for cyberattackers. Three of the most prestigious universities in the United States suffered sophisticated cyberattacks in fall 2025.

Harvard University, Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania have all disclosed data breaches that compromised sensitive information about alumni, donors, students and faculty members. The incidents underscore a growing threat: Elite educational institutions have become prime targets for cybercriminals seeking access to valuable personal and financial data.

On November 18, 2025, Harvard University discovered unauthorized access to its Alumni Affairs and Development systems following a phone-based phishing attack. The compromised systems exposed email addresses, telephone numbers, home and business addresses, event attendance records, donation details and biographical information related to university fundraising and alumni engagement activities.

The breach affected students, alumni, donors, staff and faculty members, though the systems did not contain Social Security numbers, passwords, payment card information or financial info. Harvard, which typically raises more than $1 billion annually in donations, acted swiftly to remove the attacker's access and launched an investigation with external cybersecurity experts and law enforcement.

This marks the second cybersecurity incident at Harvard in 2025. In October, the Clop ransomware gang claimed to have breached the school's systems using an Oracle E-Business Suite vulnerability.

Princeton University's Advancement database was compromised on November 10 in a phone phishing attack targeting an employee with ordinary access to the database. The breach exposed names, email addresses, telephone numbers and home and business addresses, along with biographical information pertaining to university fundraising and alumni engagement activities.

Princeton officials noted that the database didn't contain financial info, credentials or records protected by privacy regulations. The university successfully evicted the attackers within 24 hours, though it remains unclear exactly what information was viewed or extracted during that window.

The university believes all alumni (including anyone ever enrolled as a student at Princeton, even if they did not graduate), alumni spouses and partners, university donors, current students, parents of current and past students and current and past faculty and staff were likely affected.

The University of Pennsylvania suffered what appears to be the most damaging attack of the three. On October 30, threat actors breached Penn's systems using an employee's PennKey SSO account that provided access to the university's Salesforce instance, Qlik analytics platform, SAP business intelligence system and SharePoint files.

The hackers stole 1.71 GB of internal documents from the university's SharePoint and Box storage platforms, including spreadsheets, documents, financial information and alumni marketing materials. The threat actors also claimed to have stolen Penn's Salesforce donor marketing database, containing 1.2 million records with personally identifiable information, donation history and demographic details.

Before being locked out, the attackers sent offensive mass emails from Penn.edu addresses and released thousands of pages of internal university files on online forums, including internal talking points, memos about donors and their families and bank transaction receipts. Penn has reported the incident to the FBI and is working with CrowdStrike on the investigation.

Educational institutions, particularly wealthy universities with extensive alumni networks, present attractive targets for cybercriminals for several reasons:

Rich data repositories: Universities maintain vast databases containing personal information, financial records and donation histories spanning decades. These institutions handle valuable data but often lack enterprise-grade security infrastructure.

Wealthy alumni networks: Elite universities like Harvard, Princeton and Penn have alumni who include corporate executives, politicians, entrepreneurs and other high-net-worth individuals. This donor data is particularly valuable for criminals seeking to commit identity theft, financial fraud or targeted phishing attacks.

Decentralized systems: Universities often rely on sprawling, decentralized digital systems that can be difficult to lock down. Multiple departments, legacy systems and diverse user populations create numerous potential entry points for attackers.

Limited security budgets: Despite their endowments, universities often operate development and alumni relations offices with limited IT budgets compared to their exposure to risk.

High emotional stakes: Attackers know that institutions handling sensitive alumni and donor data face enormous pressure to contain breaches quickly, potentially making them more likely to comply with ransom demands.

The principles of cybersecurity that protect vulnerable organizations apply equally to universities managing sensitive alumni and donor data. Here's how universities can strengthen their defenses:

Universities need to implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) across all systems containing sensitive data, particularly development and alumni databases. Access controls should be deployed with MFA required on all systems, and role-based access controls should ensure staff only access information necessary for their roles. Regular audits should review and revoke unnecessary permissions, especially for employees who change roles or leave the institution.

The phone-based phishing attacks that compromised both Harvard and Princeton demonstrate why MFA alone isn't sufficient. Universities need robust identity verification procedures that go beyond simple authentication prompts, particularly for high-value systems.

Universities should encrypt sensitive data both at rest and in transit, establish clear data retention policies and purge information when no longer legally required. The principle is simple: minimizing stored data reduces exposure risk. Alumni databases often contain decades of information that may no longer be necessary for current operations.

Universities should also conduct regular audits to identify what data they're storing, why they're storing it and whether it still serves a legitimate purpose. Personal information about donors' families, detailed demographic data and decades-old contact information should all be evaluated for necessity.

Universities should maintain regular, tested backups stored in immutable formats that ransomware cannot encrypt, implementing the 3-2-1 backup rule: three copies of data, on two different media types, with one copy off-site. The ability to restore systems and data without paying ransoms depends entirely on having reliable, tested backups.

Universities need to deploy anti-malware and anti-ransomware protection on all devices, with extended detection and response capabilities providing visibility across endpoints, networks and cloud applications to identify threats before they cause damage. Continuous monitoring is essential for detecting intrusions during the narrow window when attackers are active.

Human error remains a primary attack vector, and staff handling sensitive data need regular security awareness training on phishing recognition, social engineering tactics and secure data handling procedures. The Harvard and Princeton breaches both succeeded through phone-based phishing targeting individual employees.

Universities should implement regular training that includes:

• Recognition of voice phishing (vishing) attempts.
• Verification procedures for unusual requests.
• Proper handling of credentials and access.
• Reporting protocols for suspicious activity.
• Understanding of social engineering techniques.

Training should be mandatory, regular and tested through simulated phishing exercises. Development and alumni relations staff, who regularly interact with high-net-worth individuals and handle sensitive financial information, require specialized training on the threats they face.

Universities need comprehensive incident response plans that outline procedures for detecting, containing and recovering from breaches. These plans should include:

• Clear escalation procedures and contact information.
• Communication protocols for affected individuals.
• Coordination with law enforcement.
• Engagement with external cybersecurity experts.
• Public relations and media response strategies.

The rapid response demonstrated by Princeton, which evicted attackers within 24 hours, shows the value of prepared incident response teams. However, even quick action couldn't prevent data exposure during that window.

The coordinated timing of these breaches across three Ivy League institutions raises questions about whether these attacks are connected, though Princeton officials have stated they have no evidence linking the incidents. Regardless of coordination, these breaches reveal systematic vulnerabilities in how universities protect sensitive data.

Educational institutions must acknowledge that the true vulnerability often lies in social engineering, with attackers preying on trust, urgency and the good intentions of staff. Technical controls are necessary but insufficient without fostering a culture of security awareness and healthy skepticism.