UCSD Finance Computers Hacked

[Doctor Q]

News link

About 380,000 University of California, San Diego, students, alumni, applicants, staff and faculty are being warned that a hacker may have had access to their personal information. University officials began notifying people Wednesday that someone accessed four computers in the Business and Financial Services Department. The breach was discovered April 16. The computers contained personal information including names, Social Security and driver's license numbers.

This is scary. I have friends at U.C San Diego. And San Diego State University had a hacking incident last month.

Here is official UCSD info about the incident.

See also this this previous news story about university breakins and the MacRumors thread about it.

 

[Doctor Q]

I should mention that the break-in happened in April even though news stories about it are coming out now. Are UCSD students being e-mailed about it just now for the first time, or were they notified weeks ago?

 

[baby duck monge]

that sort of thing is always pretty scary. hopefully this was more a "proof of vulnerability" than anything that will end poorly...

 

[MacAztec]

My sister applied there and they had her information in the database. They sent us a formal letter stating to watch our bank accounts, credit cards, SS card use, stuff like that, for the next couple months.

if anything suspicious happens, they had a contact number.

 

[Rower_CPU]

My fiancée and I had information on the machine that got hacked at SDSU (see story referenced in Doctor Q's original post) and we heard about it first via the media and then received an official notice that our info was indeed on the server in question. Needless to say, we signed up with a credit protection service and we'll be watching things closely for the next year or so.

This incident at UCSD is 10x worse than the one at SDSU, just in terms of the number of people affected. I hope they manage to track down those responsible and prevent them from committing identity theft.

 

[Doctor Q]

San Diego Union-Tribune story - essentially the same news.

 

[teabgs]

this happened at NYU a few months ago. they didnt tell anyone about it until word got out. It was only 2100 or so people affected, and they claim they told those people before word got out. HOWEVER, they only told people after about two weeks... I think colleges dont like word of this to get out but it happens all the time.