Laptop stolen from UCCS professor puts students at risk
A laptop that was recently stolen from a University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS) professor contained the personal information for certain students and alumni.How many victims? 766.
What type of personal information? The laptop contained class rosters, which include names, student identification numbers, email addresses, graduating class year, and grade information. In addition, some 241 records contained Social Security numbers.
What happened? The laptop was stolen out of the professor’s home. UCCS has not revealed the professor’s name, or what he or she taught.
Details: All the affected individuals went to UCCS between 2003 and 2009. Some of the rosters contained students’ Social Security numbers because up until 2005 UCCS used Social Security numbers as ID numbers.
What was the response? Letters have been sent to affected individuals.
To help prevent a future breach, the school is now working to eliminate Social Security numbers from school computers and encrypt all personal information on laptops.
Source: kktv.com, KKTV Southern Colorado, “Personal Information of Hundreds of UCCS Students May Be Compromised,” July 28, 2009.
