Server breach exposes identities of students, staff
A server breach at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater potentially compromised the confidential information of 70,000 students, staff and faculty who purchased parking and transit services permits in the past six years.What type of personal information? Names, addresses and Social Security numbers.
What happened? University officials believe the person who hacked into the server wanted to use its bandwidth and storage capacity to distribute illegal content. However, they are not sure if any of the personal information was accessed by the intruder.
Details:IT staff took the server offline when the breach was discovered in March - and the school immediately took the Social Security numbers down. No fraud associated with the breach has yet been detected.
Quote:"This breakdown in security is totally unacceptable." - University President Burns Hargis.
Source:NewsOK.com, The Oklahoman Direct, "OSU breach raises fears of ID theft," May 15.
