Education Sector

TX: Info on UTMB patients may have been compromised

Cindy George reports: Confidential information about 1,200 UTMB patients may have been stolen by a contractor last year. The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston mailed letters to the patients whose private information was accessed by an employee of MedAssets, a company hired to assist with billing from third-party payers. The Georgia-based firm...

IA: Security breaches of state computer systems in recent years

A number of news sources in Iowa are considering the state’s plans to consolidate its computer systems in light of the recent hack involving the state racing and gaming commission. A listing of 10 breaches involving state computers can be found here. Eight of the 10 breaches are from the education sector.

UTEP: Students Social Security Numbers May Have Been Visible In Mail

Jessica Molinar reports: If you’re a University of Texas at El Paso student, you’ve probably gotten a letter in the mail from the university saying your Social Security number was visible when your tax form was sent out. UTEP said they notified 15,000 students but they don’t know exactly how many students were affected....

TX: Woman sentenced to 34 years over Irving ISD ID theft

As a follow-up to a case previously covered on this site where Irving ISD employees became victims of ID theft after paper records with their personal information was tossed out, unshredded, the Associated Press now reports that Sharon Denise Seeley pleaded guilty and was sentenced for her role in the scam. Seeley was sentenced...

Are public school districts adequately securing accounts?

How many school districts have had their funds hacked or otherwise illegally transferred to non-district accounts that we may never have heard about? Consider this newly released NYS Office of the Comptroller audit of Lindenhurst School District on Long Island that reports what were likely hacked accounts in 2007: There are nine schools...

Ca: Brock student information inadvertently leaked to Internet

Brock University officials scrambled this week to secure the private information of more than 17,000 students that was inadvertently put up on the Internet. An error was made on Dec. 22 when a library staff member accidentally uploaded a file containing all student names, student numbers, phone numbers, mailing and email addresses to the...

Nl: University of Utrecht leaks pay slips

Karin Spaink summarizes, in English, a breach reported on security.nl: Randstad HR Solutions, which apparently takes care of the payroll information of the employees of the University of Utrecht, made an error. Employees did not only receive their own January pay slip and yearly overviews, but also slips and overviews intended for others. Randstad...