UCCS Students’ Private Data Could be Compromised

ITACadmin — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:10:54 +0000

With the dog days of summer waning down, we have been focusing on the topic of identity theft and higher education. You may have listened to our podcast with Chris Fulkerson, Assistant Vice President for Technology and CIO, Elon University, as well read as our Q&A with Joy Hughes, CIO and Vice President for Information Technology, George Mason University. The bottomline is that identity theft is a real threat on campus. And, this was further reinforced by a data breach that occurred at University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS) when a laptop with student information was recently stolen.

Here’s how it happened: the laptop was stolen from a professors home during a burglary. The university is not releasing the professor’s name nor are they saying what subject they taught. They did however act immediately by mailing letters to students telling them what happened. The letter reached 766 students who attended classes at UCCS between 2003 and 2009.

The reason why they thought that student social security numbers could have been compromised? Up until 2005 UCCS used social security numbers as ID numbers. Fortunately, that policy is no longer in effect, but the compromised data is still out there in the hands of the bad guys.

ITAC Blog » UCCS Student Data

UCCS Students’ Private Data Could be Compromised