university of texas at austin hacked
university of texas at austin got hacked. i received an email today from the school indicating that the business school was hacked. ut austin was one of the schools i considered for graduate school. i never applied there, but for some reason i got on their email list. ut austin is top-notch in computer science. perhaps this incident will beef-up their focus on security.
data theft is such a terrible problem — it’s reprehensible and really devastates the victims life for a long time. despite that, though, the techie in me is really interested in how ut austin was hacked. i wonder how they did it?
there’s a lot of opportunity for entrepreneurship in data security. this is a lesson learned: take care of and protect your data.
here’s the email i received.
—–BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE—–
From: President William Powers Jr.
Subject: McCombs School of Business security breach
Date: April 25, 2006A serious breach of security has been discovered in the primary administrative information system at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. This system contains 197,000 individual records, and many but not all, contain Social Security numbers. Among those in the system are Business School alumni, students (including students who have taken a few courses or one course at McCombs), admissions applicants, present and former faculty and staff, and corporate recruiters. I write to inform you that your record is contained in the breached McCombs system.
At least 106,000 individual records containing names and Social Security numbers were accessed (downloaded) by the intruder. If you are a current McCombs faculty or staff member, initial analysis indicates you are included in this number. If you are a current McCombs student or alumnus, there is a very high probability you are included. We are less certain about the risk to others affiliated with McCombs.
Rather than wait for additional analysis to determine the extent of your risk, we advise you today to take precautions immediately to protect your credit. The University strongly recommends that you place a “fraud alert” on your file with the three major credit bureaus. Instructions for placing the no-charge fraud alerts, and other information about the security breach can be found on the special Web site.
Please know that the University is committed to doing everything it can to ensure the security of any personal information received from you, and to working vigorously with law enforcement authorities to identify and prosecute those responsible for this intrusion.
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