Columbia students’ personal data stolen by politically motivated hacker, university says

A politically motivated hacker breached Columbia University’s data systems last week, stealing troves of student documents while briefly shutting down the school’s computer systems, a university official said.

The June 24 cyberattack prompted widespread network outages on campus, locking students and staff out of their e-mail accounts, coursework and video conference software for several hours. On the same day, images of President Donald Trump’s smiling face appeared on several public monitors across the Manhattan campus.