Data Breach Alert: Western Carolina University exposes hundreds of social security numbers

Posted by Joe on March 24th, 2008

Thanks for visiting the NextAdvisor Daily blog. You may want to subscribe to our RSS feed.

The social security numbers of 555 Western Carolina University alumni were exposed to hackers when a university computer containing the information was breached.

The impacted students had all signed up for an alumni newsletter. Their social security numbers were stored with their subscription information because WCU had used social security numbers as a students university identification numbers up until last fall.

University officials said that they were aware of other attempts to access this data going back as far as 2006. There are no reports of any misuse of the data at this point.

Learn more about identity theft protection in our free online identity theft protection service guide.

• Data Breach Alert: College students receive social security numbers of classmates over email
• Data Breach Alert: 70,000 impacted in OSU server breach
• Data Breach Alert: Stolen laptop leaves thousands of Connecticut State students exposed
• Data Breach Alert: Tens of thousands impacted in Antioch College data breach
• Data Breach Alert: 60,000 impacted in Ohio data breach