Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


Direct Deposit Breach Strikes Illinois State

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 03/07/16

A central Illinois newspaper has reported a breach within Illinois State University in which direct deposit payroll payments for 13 school employees were diverted to a different bank account.

According to reporting in The Pantagraph, the university learned about the problem when one of the affected employees reported it. The total amount was about $50,000, and the university has made up the loss to the employees. It has also sent out emails to faculty, staff and students to alert them to check their own accounts for "suspicious activity."

The university's chief of staff, Jay Groves, told the newspaper that the break-in resulted when somebody accessed the university logins of the people who were affected, allowing the hacker to access their accounts and change their direct-deposit information. To prevent that from happening again, the school has shut down  that specific self-serve functionality within its human resource information system, iPeople, temporarily, "to preserve payroll data integrity."

Both the university's IT and police departments are working with other law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, on the case. Groves added that similar crimes have occurred at other universities, and they've been contacted as part of the investigation.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • man viewing holographic display of data and code

    Why Cross-Skilling Is the Smartest Investment a Campus IT Team Can Make

    Higher education IT teams are being asked to keep pace with AI, cloud, and cybersecurity on flat budgets, and hiring a specialist for every new need can no longer keep up. Building adjacent skills across the people already on staff creates more agile, resilient teams that move faster and retain talent without adding headcount. Pluralsight makes the strategy work through skill assessments, tailored learning paths, hands-on labs and sandboxes, and microlearning that fits into the flow of work.

  • abstract malware attack

    Report: AI Ransomware Can Now Run Much of an Attack Without Human Help

    Ransomware attacks are becoming more automated, and AI could take that much further, according to global cybersecurity company NCC Group's July 2026 threat intelligence report.

  • Student classroom scene with diverse learners attentively engaging in lecture, using laptops

    The AI Literacy Gap No One Expected

    While Gen Z may be advanced at generating quick outputs or using free LLMs for surface-level tasks, they need to develop critical thinking, communication, and analysis skills.

  • Blue digital wireframe classical building structure

    Before AI, Fix Your Data

    Institutions don't have to solve every data problem before they can begin using AI responsibly. But they do need to treat information as a strategic asset — not a byproduct of operations — and start building toward AI-ready data now.