Breach, Data Security

More than 6K personal records compromised in university breach

The personal information of thousands of students at the University of South Carolina (USC) in Columbus is at risk after a laptop was stolen from the school.

How many victims?
More than 6,300.

What type of personal information? Names, email addresses, and Social Security numbers.

What happened? In April, a laptop was stolen from a locked room in the university's physics and astronomy department, which contained the student information, according to a letter sent to affected students.

What was the response? The school notified victims and offered one year of free credit monitoring.

Details: The breach affects students who were enrolled in one of four classes dating back to January 2010. According to the letter sent by the university, the laptop was password protected.

This is the second breach at the university in the last year. In August 2012, the school announced that its College of Education's web server was hacked, affecting approximately 34,000 students, staff, and researchers.

Quote: “No one is immune to attack, and with that, we have to be aware and realistic that the odds are against us,” Marcos Vieyra, chief information security at USC, said.

Source: www.greenvilleonline.com, The Greenville News, “USC hit with another personal data breach,” June 24, 2013.

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