More than 7,700 people who have received some sort of payment from the University of Arizona in the last year were recently exposed in an accidental
data breach early this year.
The incident exposed a wealth of personal information for vendors, consultants, guest speakers and even student at the school, according to a report from the
Arizona Star. That includes their names and Social Security numbers, which were posted online and easily accessible through a routine Google search.
The data went up in either late February or early March, and wasn't reported until an affected student alerted the school to the incident, the report said. The school began notifying victims in May, but many victims believed they were receiving bogus notifications and offers. The school has reason to believe that at least some of that sensitive data was viewed by unauthorized people.
Ondrej Krehel, the chief information security officer for
Identity Theft 911, has a blog about the ways in which
breach notification can be helpful in allowing consumers to avoid problems that stem from these incidents.
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