May has been a record-setting month for college and university data breaches so far in 2009. With a total of 177,487 exposed records from only three schools, May accounts for a big chunk of the total 414, 825 records reported lost so far this year, though it accounts for less than 10% of the 35 known data breaches.

NOTE: When reading the totals, it’s important to know that the actual number of data breaches and exposed records is like much higher; many data breaches go unreported, and among those that are reported many involve an unknown number of records. So far this year, six of the 35 reported data breaches involve an unknown number of records.

And with that caveat, ladies and gentlemen, we now induct the following institutions of higher learning into the Data Breach Hall of Shame:

• Ball State University

LOCATION: Muncie, Indiana
BREACH TYPE: Hacker/User error
NUMBER AFFECTED: 2,000 individuals
COMPROMISED DATA: Web accounts

• University of California; University Health Services Center

LOCATION: Berkeley, California
BREACH TYPE: Hacker
NUMBER AFFECTED: 160,000+ current and former students from UC Berkeley and Mills College
COMPROMISED DATA: Names, Social Security numbers, health insurance information, immunization records and patient/physician information

• Kapiolani Community College
  LOCATION: Honolulu, Hawaii
  BREACH TYPE: Hacker
  NUMBER AFFECTED: 15,487 current and former students
  COMPROMISED DATA: Names, addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, Social Security numbers

LifeLock provides identity theft protection to nearly 1.5 million Americans. Whether you’re a college student, a college applicant, a college graduate or the parent of any of these, you should visit LifeLock.com to learn more about their services. Enroll using the LifeLock promotion code DEFENSE to receive a discount.

I love hearing stories about businesses that have come over to the green side with their recycling programs. Yessir, seeing all those stuffed recycling bins fills my heart with joy … almost always.

The exception is when those bins are filled with thousands of files containing customers’ personal information and left sitting in a parking lot at a closed car dealership.

Richard Freeman discovered 10 trash bins full of files with customers’ information after attending a going out of business auction at Anderson Kia in Boulder, Col.

“When I opened up the Dumpster, I noticed it was plum full of files,” Freeman said.

Each of the files was marked with the customers’ name and contained copies of driver’s licenses, checks, Social Security numbers, photos, phone numbers and bank information. In short, what he discovered was the stuff identity thieves’ dreams are made of.

Freeman said he was astonished and disgusted by the cavalier disposal of the files, a response no doubt heightened by the fact that his own file may be among the others, as he was one of Anderson Kia’s customers.

Though the files were found behind Anderson Kia, many of them came from John Elway’s AutoNation, which closed in 2005.

Women are hit harder and more often by identity theft than are men, according to a recently released survey conducted by Javelin Strategy and Research, a leading provider of financial topics studies.

Among survey respondents, 28% of women said they are identity theft victims, compared to only 21% of men who said they’d been targeted by identity thieves.

Researchers believe the disparity can be attributed to women’s making the majority of purchasing decisions in a household.

Other survey findings:

• 79% of women said they worried more about ID theft than having their homes broken into or having their cars stolen. Only 71% of the men surveyed said they were concerned about identity theft.
• Once becoming an ID theft victim, women were more likely to change their behaviors to lessen the chance of being victimized again. For instance, 7% of women gave up online shopping after having their identities stolen, compared to only 2% of men.
• When it came to recovering from identity theft, 6% of women said they’d spent more than a year to resolve issues with police, credit card companies, banks and credit reporting agencies. Only 4% of men spent more than a year on identity theft resolution.
• More women than men pay for credit-monitoring service, shred documents and limit the number of personally identifying documents they take with them when they travel.

If you’re thinking of getting your mother a Mother’s Day gift that lasts longer than flowers, visit LifeLock.com and learn more about the strategies and services they provide to help protect the identities of nearly 1.5 million members. Use the LifeLock promo code DEFENSE to receive a discount on service.