Six Florida colleges victims of widespread data breach

Data from Broward College, Florida State College at Jacksonville, Northwest Florida State College, Pensacola State College, South Florida Community College, and Tallahassee Community College was exposed.

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (DarkReading) August 11, 2010 -- Six colleges in Florida had their students’ and employees’ personal data exposed and, in some cases, accessed and posted online by outsiders when a library services firm serving the colleges inadvertently left the information in its database exposed for five days.

Students, faculty, and employees at Broward College, Florida State College at Jacksonville, Northwest Florida State College, Pensacola State College, South Florida Community College, and Tallahassee Community College all are at risk of exposed personal data, according to The College Center for Library Automation (CCLA), in Tallahassee, which provides automated library services and electronic resources to Florida public colleges.

As many as 126,000 individuals’ Social Security numbers and other personal information were accessed online by unauthorized people after a software upgrade at the organization resulted in the database being left exposed.

The breach reportedly was discovered after a student found his own SSN via a Google search in late June. Although the CCLA did not specify how the data was there, it appears that whoever accessed it was likely posting it in an effort to sell or abuse it, security experts say.

Link: http://www.darkreading.com/database_security/security/attacks/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226700062

Source: DHS Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report