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UT Austin Hit By Massive Security Breach

Posted by timothy on from the wonder-if-they-got-mine dept.

mrpuffypants writes "Reported in the Austin-American Statesman: The University of Texas' security was compromised over the weekend, leaking out nearly 60,000 records on students, staff, and faculty. Official word from the school can be found here. Most troubling of all is that, like most schools, UT still uses SSNs for student ID numbers, and that was part of the information taken from them in the attack."

6 of 508 comments (clear)

  1. All they got... by FirstManOnMoon · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Those SSNs that matched selected individuals in a UT database were captured, together with e-mail address, title, department name, department address, department phone number, and names/dates of employee training programs attended. It is important to note that no student grade or academic records, or personal health or insurance information was disclosed."

    Phew, I feel so much better now!

  2. Re:What's the big panic about SSNs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny


    Why are Americans so paranoid about who knows their SSN?

    Because it's a lawless and uncivilized colony filled with criminals who will steal your identity to get a free meal at Ponderosa without a twinge of guilt.

  3. Already fixed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    They immediately disconnected the compromised database from the Internet, later hooking up a database of useless information.

    They probably just copied over the DB containing the University's security procedures.

  4. Re:At least the University is acting responsibly.. by da'+WINS+pimp · · Score: 4, Funny

    "There are six to 12 ways we could have reduced the risk to the database," Updegrove said. "The sad thing is, we didn't do any of them."

    Unfortunately the literal translation of this is:

    I am so fired!

    --

    "I'm just here to regulate funkyness." - James Gandolfini, as Winston in The Mexican
  5. Now wait a DAMNED MINUTE!! by goldspider · · Score: 3, Funny
    "The University of Texas' security was compromised over the weekend, leaking out nearly 60,000 records on students, staff, and faculty."

    That information wasn't leaked, it was FREED!

    --
    "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
  6. Re:What's the big panic about SSNs? by TuxGrep · · Score: 3, Funny
    Wrong. SSNs are not unique. The combination of birthdate, name and SSN is unique.

    Hmm.
    Well, depending on the resolution with which you record "birthdate" (days? minutes? seconds?) one could probably just about prove that the combination of name and birthdate is already unique, regardless of the SSN.
    Unless maybe when your name is real common.

    Come to think of it, names should maybe be deprecated altogether. Just record the time of birth, and the GPS coordinates thereof.
    Provably unique, and names are confusing anyhow. ;-)
    Or else, we can design a domain name system for that too; A network of central servers that can facilitate a name lookup. Just input GPS and date/time and it tells you the name of the subject ! ;-)