This is sort of off topic, but not really...FAMU isn't the only university with occasional computer hiccups, hackers broke into the University of California at Berkeley's health services center computer and potentially stole the personal information of more than 160,000 students, alumni, and others, the university announced yesterday.
At particular risk of identity theft are some 97,000 individuals whose Social Security numbers were accessed in the breached, Shelton Waggener, UCB's chief technology officer, said in a press conference Friday afternoon.
The attackers accessed a public Web site and then bypassed additional secured databases stored on the same server. In addition to SSNs, the databases contained health insurance information and non-treatment medical information, such as immunization records and names of doctors patients had seen.
The server breach began on October 9, 2008, and continued through April 9, when a campus computer administrator doing routine maintenance discovered messages left by the attackers. Logs indicate that the hacks originated from overseas, "primarily in the Asian theater," Waggener said, later specifying traces to China.
While campus police and the FBI were immediately notified of the breach, it wasn't until April 21, Waggener said, that officials learned data had been stolen.
The university started notifying the 160,000 people at risk via e-mail and snail mail on Friday. Victims include an assortment of current and former Berkeley students--as well as their parents or spouses, if linked to insurance coverage--who had University Health Services health care coverage or received services. Also included are 3,400 students of Mills College in Oakland, Calif., which contracts with the university for health services.
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The post isn't off-topic. Just goes to show you that all universities, no matter the size and student population, are at serious risk of having their computer systems hacked.
ReplyDeleteThere are different kinds/degrees of hacking. Anybody in the computer world will tell you that any system can be hacked. The pentagon and banks get hacked at some level every year. But what happen at FAMU was just stupid. Leaving a computer that staff use exposed for any novice to come up and put a key logger (that anyone can get their hands on) on is just careless. Especially for a office hand such sensitive data for so many people like the Register office. Stuff happens I know that and mistakes will be made but don't try take away from the carelessness of some folks and departments cause some other university was hacked. I'm sure how Berkley was hacked was on another whole level than how our register office was. FAMU MAY now has the expertise needed to secure the network and databases but I know for years they didn't. We need to stop being reactive to problems and be more proactive (that's the bottom line).
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