Missouri State University notifies thousands of students of possible security breach

March 03, 2011|by Paula Dowler, KY3 News | pdowler@ky3.com

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- It'll be an unintended lesson in cyber security for thousands of students who were enrolled in the College of Education at Missouri State University. Missouri State University said Thursday that it is notifying 6,030 students about a possible breach of their Social Security numbers.

The university says, as it was preparing for accreditation in October and November 2010, the College of Education prepared lists of students by semester. The lists, which included Social Security numbers, were for nine semesters between 2005 and 2009 (fall, spring, summer).

A list was created for each semester, so there were nine lists. The lists were prepared in electronic format in October and November 2010 to be available on secure servers to the College of Education personnel working on the accreditation, as well as the accreditation team.

The university says these lists of names were posted in October/November 2010 on an unsecured server. As a result, all nine lists ended up on Google. In all, 6,030 names with Social Security numbers were compromised and posted on the web.

MSU says it learned of the breach on Feb. 22 when someone reported it to administrator. Since then, the university says it has taken the following actions:

-- The university worked with Google to pull all the lists – the ninth and final one was removed this past weekend. It appears there have been limited “hits” on these lists since last October/November, but there have been some.

-- The university is in the process of contacting all 6,030 students to inform them of the breach.

-- The university is offering to pay for consumer identify theft protection insurance for all involved. At a negotiated rate of $7 per person, the total cost will be about $42,210.

-- The university has notified the Missouri Attorney General's Office, which is an obligation under Missouri statutes for a breach of this magnitude.

-- The university initiated disciplinary action against the employee who posted the information on the unsecured server.

-- Finally, the university properly secured the lists for the College of Education’s accreditation, and officials are working with all other college deans to ensure that policies and processes are followed to secure all university information.

“It is very unfortunate that this breach occurred,” said Jeff Morrissey, MSU's chief information officer. “We are taking this breach very seriously, and we hope these steps will prevent inappropriate use of the personal information that was compromised.”

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