Another university data breach. College students especially vulnerable to identity theft
Thursday, November 13th, 2008Texas A&M University students’ personal information has been exposed in a data breach … again.
A student was surprised to discover the security lapse while searching the University website last week. A list of 1,430 admissions applicants was easily accessible, and revealed the applicants’ names and Social Security numbers.
The student became especially alarmed when she saw that her name and Social Security number was among those on the list. She immediately reported it to officials at the university.
“We take this very seriously and it is always disappointing when something like this happens,” A&M-Corpus Christi President Flavius Killebrew said Friday.
Apparently Killebrew has had a lot of disappointments recently.
In September of this year a hacker accessed one of the university’s servers and was able to see a document containing students’ Social Security numbers.
Two other data breaches occurred during the summer of last year. In June, a flash drive containing the Social Security numbers of 8,000 current and former A&M students. In July 2007 a class roster with the names and Social Security numbers was lost.
When they learned of the most recent data breach last week, officials shut down the website and removed the document, Killebrew said.
Letters notifying the 1,430 applicants involved in the most recent data breach were to be mailed out this week.
College students are particularly vulnerable to identity theft, not only because of data breaches, but because they are frequently among groups of strangers in classes and in their shared dorm rooms and apartments.