University Students in California Warned of Possible Identity Theft

[R. A. Hettinga]

<http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB109417629363709000,00.html>

The Wall Street Journal


 September 2, 2004 10:03 p.m. EDT

University Students in California
 Warned of Possible Identity Theft

Associated Press
September 2, 2004 10:03 p.m.


LOS ANGELES -- California university officials have warned nearly 600,000
students and faculty that they might be exposed to identity theft following
incidents where computer hard drives loaded with their private information
were lost or hacked into.

Since January, at least 580,000 people who had personal information about
them stored in university computers received warnings they might be at risk.

The latest instance of missing equipment occurred in June at California
State University, San Marcos.

An auditor lost a small external hard drive for a laptop computer. Personal
data, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers and other
identifiers for 23,500 students, faculty and staff in the California State
University system were contained on the missing hard drive.

At the University of California, San Diego, and San Diego State University,
hackers broke into computers and obtained access to files of personal data
for more than 500,000 current or former students, applicants, staff,
faculty and alumni.

Officials from the Cal State system and UC San Diego said they have no
evidence any personal data were stolen.

At the University of California, Los Angeles, a stolen laptop in June led
officials to notify as many as 145,000 blood donors that their data might
be in the open.

A California law requires people be notified when they might be exposed to
identity theft went into in July 2003. Officials say that might explain the
rash of notices. "There's no reason to assume that suddenly in July 2003
all these computer security breaches started occurring," said Joanne McNabb
of the Office of Privacy Protection in the California Department of
Consumer Affairs. "It's just that we know about them now, when we didn't
hear before."


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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
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