Stolen Vanderbilt University desktop contained students' personal information
A Vanderbilt University professor's desktop computer, containing the personal information of thousands of current and former students, was recently stolen.How many victims? 7,174.
What type of personal information? Names and Social Security numbers.
What happened? The theft occurred during the weekend of Feb. 6 at the Nashville, Tenn. university.
Details: The desktop belonged to a professor who kept a database of his grade book, including Social Security numbers for some students. Among the victims, the breach affects 1,173 current undergraduate students and 174 current graduate students.
What was the response? Letters have been sent to affected individuals, who have been offered a fee year of identity protection and credit monitoring services, along with a $1 million identity theft insurance policy.
In addition, a letter was sent to all academic deans advising them to eliminate personal student information from their files and to not collect it in the future.
Source: InsideVandy.com, InsideVandy, “Student information part of security breach,” Mar. 16, 2010.
