The attacks, which apparently compromised servers as recently as April 3, are currently be investigated, according to an advisory posted April 6 by the Information Technology Systems and Services group at Stanford.

"Stanford, along with a large number of research institutions and high-performance computing centers, has become a target for some sophisticated Linux and Solaris attacks," the ITSS said in its Web advisory. "The attacker appears to be deliberately targeting machines in academic and high-performance computing environments, rather than attacking systems indiscriminately."

By Robert Lemos at CNET.

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