The University of California, Riverside (UC Riverside) is notifying about 8,000 current and former graduate students, graduate applicants and other related individuals that their personal information was on a desktop computer that was stolen during a break-in.
How many victims? About 8,000.
What type of personal information? Names and Social Security numbers.
What happened? A desktop computer containing the personal information was stolen from UC Riverside.
What was the response? A police report was filed. All potentially impacted individuals are being notified, and offered credit monitoring services.
Details: The computer – which was password protected, but not encrypted – was stolen on March 13. A window was discovered broken and the computer was missing from the University Office Building, which houses the UC Riverside Graduate Division offices. There is no evidence that the information on the computer – which dates back at least 25 years – has been used for identity theft.
Quote: “The computer was not encrypted, and it should have been,” a UC Riverside spokesperson told SCMagazine.com on Wednesday. “The computer was new and had been placed into service quickly.”
Source: A Wednesday correspondence with a UC Riverside spokesperson; ucrtoday.ucr.edu, “Stolen Computer at UCR Triggers Potential Breach of Personal Information of 8,000,” April 7, 2015.
