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UCLA Hacked, 800,000 Identities Exposed

Posted by Zonk on from the educational dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post reports that a central campus database at UCLA containing the personal information (including SSNs) of about 800,000 UCLA affiliates has been compromised for possibly over a year. The data may have been available to hackers since October 2005 until November 21, 2006, when the breach was finally detected and blocked. Several other UC campuses have also been involved in significant data security incidents over the past few years." From the article: "'To my knowledge, it's absolutely one of the largest,' Rodney Petersen, security task force coordinator for Educause, a nonprofit higher education association, told the Los Angeles Times. Petersen said that in a Educause survey release in October, about a quarter of 400 colleges said that over the previous 12 months, they had experienced a security incident in which confidential information was compromised, the newspaper reported."

6 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Students? by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 3, Funny
    What sort of options do the students have at this point? Is the school in any way liable? Or is this just going to be one of those instances where they say "oops, we were hacked, so sorry but nothing we can do" and leave the students screwed (once again)?

    All I know is that the school better not be heavily promoting its computer security courses.

    --
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  2. at first glance by clamantis · · Score: 2, Funny

    At first glance, I thought the headline read ACLU. Now that would have stirred up a hornets' nest!

  3. As an alumnus... by Otter · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...I'm willing to cut them a lot of slack since the USC game. So let's call this one a wash. Go Bruins!

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    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
  4. Re:wow! by voice_of_all_reason · · Score: 3, Funny

    I wonder, will there be a point in time when we hold accountable either the credit agencies for their broken system or organizations we are forced to trust with our data for not keeping it safe? Sure. But it's up to you. Here's a handy guide for redressing your grievances: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storming_of_the_Basti lle

  5. pwned (tagging beta) by Dan+Slotman · · Score: 3, Funny
    pwned (tagging beta)
    This represents everything wrong with slashdot. On the other hand, I'm still here...
  6. Incompetent Academics by toddhisattva · · Score: 2, Funny

    Incompetent Academics
    Always Blaming Hackers
    To Cover Their Asses!