UCLA has sent letters notifying 800,000 faculty, staff, students, and applicants that a database containing their personal information was accessed by a hacker for more than a year. Officials at the university said the database was breached in October 2005 but that the problem was not discovered until late November of this year when university staff observed that a hacker was searching the database for names and Social Security numbers. Jim Davis, CIO at UCLA, said that perhaps 5 percent of the records were accessed and that so far there have been no reports of the information being misused. He also noted that the compromised database was a central component of the university’s computer systems and was protected by stringent security. The attackers used highly sophisticated methods, Davis said, both to access the system and to cover their tracks to prevent detection.San Jose Mercury News, 12 December 2006
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/16220549.htm
You’ve been reading an excerpt from Edupage:
To subscribe or access the Edupage archive, visit http://www.educause.edu/Edupage/639