Isolated data breaches leave student, university files vulnerable A series of unrelated data breaches and cyberattacks have cropped up at universities across the country in recent weeks. University databases are always a prime target for hackers and would-be fraudsters, and a few recent incidents are serving as a reminder of the value that university databases hold. Here’s a brief rundown of a few cyberattacks that have taken place at the University of Colorado, Brown University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore. U. of Colorado data breach Hackers are attempting to extort the University of Colorado after a cyberattack that may have compromised personal information from more than 310,000 files.