It’s been a tough year for data security on campus. The most recent data breach hit Penn State University, where an unknown hacker or hackers accessed computers in three of the school’s facilities. eSecurity Planet has the details.
Penn State University gave its students an unwelcome gift over the holiday break, notifying some 30,000-plus students that a series of malware-induced data breaches at computers hosted at three different campus locations had exposed their personal information for an unknown period of time.
According to the university’s office of privacy, the malware attacks struck computers in the Eberly College of Science, the College of Health and Human Development and at a third building off the school’s main campus in University Park, Penn.
University officials started sending out letters to affected students last week and have initiated an investigation into exactly when and how the data breaches occurred.
At this point, it’s unclear how many times the data was accessed
“Even when theft is only a remote possibility, we alert anyone who may have been affected, and arm them with information and steps to take to mitigate their risk,” Sarah Morrow, Penn State’s chief privacy officer, said in a statement. She added that the university was enclosing a brochure detailing how to prevent identity theft with the notification letters.