I was on ABC News Radio yesterday right after news broke that the University of Maryland had suffered a major data breach involving information belonging to faculty, students and employees–anyone who had been issued an identification card. The exposed information included the name, social security number and date of birth of more than 300,000 people.
There have been hundreds of breaches at universities over the years. At least two have been breached more than 5 times, but this latest attack is one of the bigger ones.
Universities present inviting targets because they are open environments, there is a treasure trove of data and so many people have access to so many points of IT vulnerability. If you went to UofMD, it’s time to take all precautions: Check your banks accounts daily, purchase a credit monitoring service, and be vigilant. Here’s an article about the Target breach that outlines what you can do if your information has been exposed in a data breach.
