Thousands of University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC) students, who lived in a private housing complex near the campus called Hendrick House between 1997 and the spring of 2011, had their information uploaded to a thumb drive.
How many victims? Nearly 3,000.
What type of personal information? Names, addresses, Social Security numbers, birth dates, and other personal information.
What happened? UIUC police said a former student Daniel Beckwitt, 22, broke into locked offices at the school's campus in 2011 and downloaded the unencrypted data onto a thumb drive. Beckwitt also lived in Hendrick House while attending the school.
What was the response? Hendrick House staff advised those who lived in the apartments to monitor their credit reports for signs of fraud. Affected individuals are being notified.
Details: Police found out about the incident while working on a separate case involving Beckwitt, who pleaded guilty earlier this month to tampering with campus email accounts and installing keylogger trojans on university computers.
Source: www.foxillinois.com, Fox 55/27 Illinois, “Nearly 3,000 Social Security Numbers Taken From Hendrick House,” June 24, 2013.
www.news-gazette.com, The News–Gazette, “UI Police Say Hacker Downloaded Data on Dorm Residents,” June 20, 2013.
[This story was updated from a previous version to clarify that the Hendrick House is a private housing complex not owned by the University of Illinois.]
