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Idiot Watch: College Loses 93,000 Names
John Stith
Staff Writer
2006-03-06
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
Another "Idiot Watch" story, this time applies to an institution of higher learning. Metropolitan State College in Denver appears to have a problem hanging on vital information regarding its students. While a laptop stolen from a home couldn't necessarily be helped, the fact none of the pertinent information was encrypted could.
Apparently, an employee of the college had a laptop(surprise) in his residence and the device was stolen. Information on the computer included names and Social Security numbers and the information was being used for a grant proposal and a master's thesis. One might suggest they use the funding to encrypt the data.
The statement issued by the college said:
The theft was reported immediately by the employee to the Denver Police Department. College officials were notified on Monday, Feb. 27. Jordan explained that Denver Police did not authorize the College to make the public announcement until late on Wednesday, March 1, as they did not want their investigation, which is ongoing, to be comprised.
Jordan was quick to point out that there is no evidence of identify theft at this time. Plus he added, "The employee does not recall whether he had deleted those files from the laptop."
Nevertheless, Jordan said that the College will use every available reasonable avenue to notify the affected parties, including letters to their last-known addresses.
Once again though, despite all this, the information wasn't encrypted. There's no mention of a password. Universities are just as accountable as any bank because of the all the personal information they maintain on college students, in many cases for long periods of time.
In this case they had records dating back ten years. How can students, customers, etc. trust these institutions with the information? It's quite obvious they can't but what choice do people truly have? They are forced to use the same banks, colleges and other institutions for their business. These institutions don't have a genuine, vested interest in protecting this data. If they did, they wouldn't lose it.
Tag: Identity Fraud
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About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security.
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