Data breach at University of Maryland exposes 300K records
The sensitive personal information for more than 300,000 faculty, staff, and students at the University of Maryland were stolen in a "sophisticated" cyber attack on the school's recently bolstered security defenses, the school's president revealed late Wednesday.
The names, Social Security numbers, and birth dates of 309,079 individuals affiliated with school's College Park and Shady Grove campuses who were issued a university identification card since 1998 were exposed in Tuesday's attack, according to an apology issued Wednesday by university President Wallace Loh. However, no financial, academic, or contact information was compromised, Loh said.
The university said state and federal law enforcement authorities are investigating the cyber attack and that computer forensics investigators were working to determine how the university's defenses were breached. "With the assistance of experts, we are handling this matter with an abundance of caution and diligence," Loh said in a statement. "Computer forensic investigators are examining the breached files and logs to determine how our sophisticated, multi-layered security defenses were bypassed."
