Wow, I couldn’t believe the amount of articles that sprung up overnight about this incident. One hack, about 800,000 student’s personal information acquired. Talk about a data breach…

In what appears to be one of the largest computer security breaches ever at an American university, one or more hackers have gained access to a UCLA database containing personal information on about 800,000 of the university’s current and former students, faculty and staff members, among others.

UCLA officials said the attack on a central campus database exposed records containing the names, Social Security numbers and birth dates — the key elements of identity theft — for at least some of those affected. The attempts to break into the database began in October 2005 and ended Nov. 21, when the suspicious activity was detected and blocked, the officials said.

In a letter sent today to potential victims of the breach, acting Chancellor Norman Abrams said that although some Social Security numbers were obtained by the hackers, the university had no evidence that any of the information had been misused.[more]

Tags: Hackers, Computer Protection, Identity Theft