Entries tagged with “Education” from Identity Lock Box

Stanford University sent notification to tens of thousands of past and current employees that their personal information and identity is at risk because of a single stolen laptop that contained their personal information. The laptop was not encrypted.

A Stanford spokesman said that the stolen laptop contained personal information, including birth dates, social security numbers, and home addresses of people hired by the university before September 28th, 2007. According to the university this could be as many as 72,000 individuals.

Stanford has become the latest in a series of organizations to suffer a public relations nightmare - from Wells Fargo Bank to the US Department of Veterans Affairs – because of  a security breaches from a single stolen laptop. The sad fact here is that as the trustee of the personal information given to it, Stanford University has failed tens of thousands of people and put their financial identity at risk of being abused.

In an apparent administrative error, the personal information of more than 600 Queens University students was emailed to other students. Queens University is located in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The information contained names, addresses, student IDs and social security numbers of the affected students.

University administrators have notified affected students by email, U.S. mail, and phone. Additionally, the university has contracted with a fraud and credit monitoring service for the next 12 months. Students will receive email alerts on changes to credit reports and insurance against identity theft.

Approximately 3,100 current and past Tennessee Tech University students were notified that some of their personal information may have been compromised.

On September 11, a problem in the way student bills are process resulted in some student's social security numbers and personal identification numbers appearing on the billing statements of other students.

The university has emails letters to affected students notifying them of the problem and outlining steps to help prevent possible fraud. Information about contacting credit reporting agencies and credit fraud alert services was mailed to them.

Details: http://www.tntech.edu/publicaffairs/security/

Source: "Technical Glitch Could Make Personal Data for Some TTU Students Vulnerable," Sept. 14, The Herald_Citizen.

Record the CNN Presents Classroom Edition: Identity Theft: How to Rob a Bank when it airs commercial-free on Monday, August 27, 2007 from 4:00- 5:00 a.m. ET on CNN. (A short feature begins at 4:00 a.m. and precedes the program.)

Program Overview

If Bonnie and Clyde were alive today, they would not be using guns for their heists. Instead, they would probably use stolen identities -- the modern method for looting bank accounts, laundering checks and defrauding credit card companies. Drawing on documents from criminal cases, surveillance tapes and immigration records, as well as interviews with law enforcement agents, victims and criminals, CNN Presents goes inside the murky world of identity theft to expose what the bandits do after stealing identities.

Source: cnn.com