Re: Universities riskiest place for SSN

[Dexter Caldwell <Dexter.Caldwell () FURMAN EDU>]

Agree.  When you really study the list there are several other things that
alone might lead Higher Ed to be more likely to top this list.  Imho, it
really is a list of reported breaches, not so much a proven list of most
dangerous places  Some of the reasons it might look this way could be:

1) Sheer number of customers we reach as we turn over students in
relatively short time.
2) The retention time we have for this type of data even when there is no
longer any reason to retain someone's SSN.  (Ex, Someone who graduated 2
decades ago)
3) A perhaps broader age group of customers who must have SSNs by the time
they deal with us.  You're likely to go to college before you have to deal
much with certain financial situations that require your SSN.
4) Lower financial risk to full disclosure in many cases.  (Perhaps a much
stronger incentive for businesses in particular to make more effort to
report on what they know rather than speculate on what they might not be
sure of)

I'm not saying we'd be sure to fare better if we had good stats, but I
agree the conclusion is not foregone.   Even so I could give as many
reasons why Higher Ed could in theory be of greater risk than some of the
others.

D/C


The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv
<SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU> writes:
> The original post,
> http://blogs.mcafee.com/consumer/identity-theft/top-ten-most-dangerous-place
> s-to-leave-your-social-security-number, says, "Robert Siciliano, on behalf
> of McAfee,  analyzed data breaches published by the Identity Theft
> Resource
> Center, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and the Open Security Foundation that
> involved Social Security number breaches from January 2009 - October 2010
> to
> reveal the riskiest places to lose your ID."
>
> It is unclear if they ranked by number of records/breach or number of
> breaches.
> -Eric
>
>
>
> Eric Case, CISSP
> eric (at) ericcase (dot) com
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/ericcase
> (520) 344-CISO (2476)
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv
> > [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of Tracy Mitrano
> > Sent: Monday, November 08, 2010 11:51 AM
> > To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
> > Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Universities riskiest place for SSN
> >
> > I'm with Martin about being skeptical ... maybe a few years ago, but I
> think
> > this is old and now not very accurate news ... Tracy
> >
> >
> > On Nov 8, 2010, at 1:19 PM, Martin Manjak wrote:
> >
> > > I'd like to see the list of the safest places. Looking through the
> list,
> > > there don't appear to be any.
> > > Marty
> > >
> > > On 11/8/2010 1:12 PM, Allison F Dolan wrote:
> > > > Interesting list of risky places to give your SSN - higher ed is #1
> http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/111238/10-riskiest-
> > places-to-give-your-social-security-number?mod=bb-budgeting
> > > > Despite the somewhat sensationalist headline, the advice for
> protecting
> > > > SSN is pretty good.
> > > >
> > > > ......Allison  Dolan (617-252-1461)
> > >
> > > --
> > > Martin Manjak
> > > Information Security Officer
> > > University at Albany
> > > CISSP, GSEC, GCWN
> > >
> > > "What information consumes...is the attention of its recipients."
> > > Herbert Simon, 1971