Hacking incident on J-school Web server triggers notices to affected applicants

[kirniki <kirniki () gmail com>]

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/08/11_data.shtml

BERKELEY — University of California, Berkeley, officials announced
today (Tuesday, Aug. 11) that the campus will be notifying
approximately 490 individuals of a computer security incident
involving the Graduate School of Journalism.

Campus officials discovered during a computer security check that a
hacker had gained access to the journalism school's primary Web
server. The server contained much of the same material visible on the
public face of the Web site. However, the server also contained a
database with Social Security numbers and/or dates of birth belonging
to 493 individuals who applied for admission to the journalism school
between September 2007 and May 2009.

Although there is no evidence that the intruder stole or even viewed
information from the database containing the Social Security numbers,
it is possible that such action could have occurred, campus computer
security experts said. Consequently, UC Berkeley decided to err on the
side of caution and notify the 493 student applicants of the incident.
Letters are being sent out this week from the journalism school.

[..]

Campus computer security experts first learned of a potential problem
via a Web site in which an individual claimed to have hacked into the
journalism school's Web server. Subsequent investigation by the
Graduate School of Journalism provided sufficient evidence to support
the claim.

[..]
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