University of Maryland hack compromises SSNs of 300,000 individuals

Hundreds of thousands of records on faculty, staff and students who had obtained school identification cards were breached.

An outsider gained access to a database with multi-layered security that was storing information dating back to 1998.

Brian Voss, UMD’s chief information officer, said whoever got into the database copied it. The system contained names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and university identification numbers for 309,079 people affiliated with the school on its College Park and Shady Grove campuses.

“Voss said that what most concerns him is the sophistication of the attack: The hacker or hackers must have had a ‘very significant understanding’ of how the school’s data are designed and protected. Voss said the security breach appears to be in contrast with typical attacks, in which ‘someone left the door open,’ creating an easy opportunity for any hacker,” the Post reports.

Voss told the newspaper, “There’s no open door. These people picked through several locks to get to this data.”

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