McMaster student charged for hacking into admission offer letters

An 18-year-old McMaster student has been charged after someone hacked into a database that contains student admission offer letters.

The university contacted Hamilton police on November 10 after they discovered there was unauthorized access to a password-protected database that contained some student’s names, birth dates, internal student numbers and addresses from 2015-2017.

Detectives along with the McMaster IT department and the Hamilton Police Tech Crime Unit launched an investigation and the database was taken off line while the issue was corrected. The breach has been fixed.

McMaster says the letters do not include any personal financial or health information and no sensitive personal information was accessed or disclosed.

Hamilton police have charged a student from Thornhill, Ont. with unauthorized use of a computer. He was released and is scheduled to appear in court on December 11.

Police say further charges are pending.

The university is currently notifying all students whose information was breached.

Investigators are asking anyone who believes they may have information that could assist police to contact Detective Constable Jon Van Oene at 905-546-3818.