Breach, Data Security

University of Maryland breach impacts more than 300,000

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More than 300,000 current and former University of Maryland students, faculty and staff had personal information compromised on Tuesday morning. No financial, academic, health or contact information was stolen.

How many victims? 309,079 faculty, staff, students and affiliated personnel from the College Park and Shady Grove campuses.

What type of personal information? Names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and university identification numbers

What happened? An unidentified attack targeted a University of Maryland database that contained campus records dating back to 1998.

What was the response? The University put together a task force of law enforcement officials and computer forensic investigators to determine how the attack happened and how the school's security defenses were breached. All affected victims are receiving a year of free credit monitoring.

Details: The attackers didn't change anything within the database and instead duplicated the information for their own uses. Analysis of the attack shows that the attackers had a significant understanding of how the school's data is protected, according to The Washington Post.

Quote: “Again, I regret this breach of our computer and data systems. We are doing everything possible to protect any personal information that may be compromised,” said Wallace D. Loh, President at the University of Maryland, in a press release.

Source: umd.edu, “UMD Data Breach,” Feb. 19, 2014.

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