(MSPAlliance) – Thursday, April 27, 2006 – Someone broke into a computer at the McCombs School of Business at the < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />University of Texas at Austin, gaining access to confidential information on approximately 197,000 people, the university announced this past weekend. The breach was discovered aforter university officials noticed unspecified “unusual activity” on the database server, and data indicates the breach may have occurred as early as April 11.
The breached database included names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers for current and prospective students, alumni, faculty and corporate recruiters. The IP addresses involved in the attack are located in the Far East, indicating an external breach. The university is obligated by law to notify all individuals with information stored in the breached database.
The latest breach is part of a growing problem with breaches of university databases. In March, Georgetown University in Washington reported that personal information on more than 41,000 people was exposed after a research server was breached. In January, the University of Notre Dame in Indiana disclosed that a breach of a university server may have exposed personal information on an unspecified number of donors, and George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., reported that the names, photos and SSNs of more than 32,000 students were exposed after an attack on the universitys main ID server.