Following a recent hacking incident, all students and faculty members are being asked by The University to change their e-mail account passwords.
Tom Crafton, director of strategy and administration, said the hacker was operating from overseas and was looking for storage space.
"Someone was looking for space without buying it," Crafton said. "They were just looking for space and were using your facilities to do it in."
Crafton said only a few computers were hit and the University's computer system was able to catch the intruder on time.
Eddie White, a sophomore engineering major and a technology support employee in Student Affairs, said the majority of the affected computers were ones that had not been updated. White said one of the computers in his office was hacked into, but his group was able to clear the problem when The University's computer system found out one of the intruder's usernames.
"Mainly the old Windows 2000 boxes that hadn't been updated were hit," White said. "We're always running updates, but sometimes certain users don't."
Although no data was reported stolen from the system, officials in the vice president's office of Information Technology said the campus still needs to take precautionary measures.
"Everyone on The University's computer system will have to change their passwords," said Curt Guenther, director of communications services.
The e-mail will ask every student and faculty on campus to change their U of M email account passwords starting today until 12:01 a.m. on Sept. 29. Accounts will then be deactivated if the request is not met in the given timeframe.
Ann Harbor, director of client services, said it should be a necessity to change passwords on a routine basis, but after this incident, students cannot risk the chance of losing valuable information.
"If you do (change the password), you won't have to go through the extra steps of setting up a new account," Harbor said. "It's just a precaution."
Douglas Hurley, vice president and chief information officer for Information Technology, said this kind of attack is very common, therefore he urges everyone to change their passwords.
"The change of passwords is really easy to do and needs to be on a regular basis," he said.
The password can be changed in two ways. The student or faculty member can go to iAM.memphis.edu, log in with their current password and reset the password on the next screen. They can also take their student ID to the McWherter Library, Smith Hall Lab or IT Service Center (room 124 in the administration building), where a machine will be set up to change passwords.
