Data Breach Alert: College students receive social security numbers of classmates over email

Posted by Joe on March 18th, 2008

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A Binghampton (NY) University employee mistakenly sent a file attachment including the names, social security numbers and grade point averages of over 300 students to another group of students over email.

The email attachment containing the personal information of junior and senior accounting students was sent to 288 students in the university’s school of management.  University official said that there is no indication that student information has been misused in any way as a result of the breach.

This is the third data breach we have reported on in 2008 involving a higher education institution.  We had previously posted data breach alerts impacted Wellesley College and Harvard University students.

• Data Breach Alert: Western Carolina University exposes hundreds of social security numbers
• Data Breach Alert: Tens of thousands impacted in Antioch College data breach
• Data Breach Alert: Thousands of California students at risk for identity theft
• Data Breach Alert: Stolen laptop leaves thousands of Connecticut State students exposed
• Data Breach Alert: Thousands of Dominican University students impacted in secure file breach