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Identity Theft from University Computers

Posted by samzenpus on from the don't-trust-anyone dept.

Different River writes "Someone broke into the administrative computers at George Mason University and accessed personal information, including social security numbers, of 30,000 students, faculty, and staff. "Before the hacking, the university was in the process of replacing students' Social Security numbers with other internal numbers to protect against identity theft." Looks like they just missed it."

3 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. I always hated giving the SSN by Class+Act+Dynamo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I always hated that about college. Where I went, EVERYTHING was connected to the SSN of a student. They knew it was, at the very least, imprudent. When a student first enrolled, there was an option somewhere that the student could check off signifying that he/she would like to be assigned a non-SSN ID. It was in an obscure place, though. I only found out about it when I started working for the University. It was almost as if they hid it, knowing that this is the last thing on most folks mind who are just enrolling at the university.

    --
    My other computer is a Jacquard loom.
  2. And that's the one you know about... by ergo98 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The most remarkable thing to consider regarding these types of stories is the fact that, more often than not, the hackers are incidentally detected (e.g. they send an email saying "give me money or I go public!").

    How many of these incidents happen with no one the wiser. Just guessing, but I'd wager at least 10 major silent exploits for every 1 publicized event. How many employees of Big Corporation are doing a ZIP of the company database onto a USB key "just in case", and how many servers are silently owned month after month.

  3. In Australia.... by fodi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One of the National Privacy Principles introduced by the Privacy Act 2000, prohibits a private organisation from using such information to uniquely identify a person. Maybe other countries should follow suit and enforce such a law...