Stolen Cornell laptop contained 45,000 SSN
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Cornell University on Tuesday acknowledged that a university-owned computer stolen in early June contained the names and Social Security numbers of approximately 45,000 current and former staff and students and some dependents, leaving them vulnerable to identity theft.
The Cornell Daily Sun reported Wednesday that a member of the Cornell IT staff left the laptop in a physically unsecure environment, which violates university policy. New York state police have begun an investigation into the theft and told the paper the employee was not a suspect.
The university said it has begun sending emails and letters to the individuals whose information was on the computer. They will be offered one year of free credit monitoring and identity restoration services.
"In response to incidents of theft like this one and the increasing number of internet-enabled computer attacks, the university is continually enhancing its systems and practices," Polley A. McClure, vice president for information technologies, said in the letter.
Last June, a university computer was hacked, leading Cornell to warn 2,500 students and alumni that their personal information had potentially been stolen, the Daily Sun reported.
Related News:
Failed terrorist attack prompts questions about the next time - 12.31.2009
Cyber security experts said, in the wake of the failed bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit, that the next terrorist attack could come from cyberspace.
Social media app developer sued over privacy breach - 12.31.2009
RockYou, a firm that creates applications for use on social media networks, was sued this week by an Indiana man who alleges that the developer failed to adequately safeguard his personally identifiable information.
'Iranian Cyber Army' uses DNS hacking to bring down Twitter - 12.18.2009
Popular microblogging service Twitter went down for several hours on Thursday as hackers claiming to represent the "Iranian Cyber Army" disrupted the site's DNS records and replaced the front page graphics with angry anti-American sentiments presented in broken English.
ChoicePoint hit by $275K fine for 2008 data security breach - 10.21.2009
ChoicePoint, a large data broker subsidiary of Reed Elsevier, has been ordered to pay a $275,000 fine by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, over a data breach in 2008 that exposed the private data of more than 13,000 customers.
TJX settles another class action over data breach - 9.4.2009
TJX Companies yesterday announced a settlement agreement that will result in the dismissal of a class action initiated by financial institutions as a result of the data breach of TJX's network security during 2005 and 2006 that exposed approximately 40 million credit card numbers.
|
