One can never be too sure about data security in this day and age, security breaches often happen and can result in loss of crucial data. Take the recent Target hack for example, it resulted in personal information as well as credit and debit card numbers of more than 70 million people being compromised. While its no where near that colossal, a security hole may have lead to the personal information of 146,000 Indiana University students being exposed.
The university itself has revealed this in a news release, saying that the information includes names, addresses and even Social Security numbers of 146,000 students and graduates at seven campuses. The information of these students who attended from 2011 to 2014 was stored for a year on a site that wasn’t protected by security authentication. Breach was discovered by a staffer in the registrar’s office, after which the site was locked down and all of the data moved to a secure location.
Data mining applications, better known as webcrawlers, were found to have accessed and downloaded those files. Despite that, the university says that it had measures in place to safeguard information. It assures students and graduates that no evidence has been found of these files being used for “inappropriate or illegal purposes.” It will notify those affected within this week and will also provide names and Social Security numbers to three major credit monitoring agencies to ensure that the information doesn’t end up being used for something frowned upon by law.
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