LifeLock Blog

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

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