Another Hawaiian University Exposes Personal Data

For the second time in less than a year, University of Hawaii officials are dealing with another massive data breach that exposed students' and alumni's most sensitive personal information for almost a year.

This time around, university officials said a faculty member in December accidentally uploaded the names, Social Security numbers, addresses, birth dates and educational data of more than 40,000 alumni to an unencrypted Web server from the university's West Oahu (UHWO) campus.

The data, which was to be used for a university-sponsored survey, was available online until the security gaffe was brought to university officials' attention on Oct. 18 by the Liberty Coalition, a nonprofit, consumer privacy and data protection organization based in Washington. In a security advisory, University of Hawaii officials said both the FBI and the Honolulu Police Department were notified immediately after the breach was confirmed and officials disconnected the unsecured server to prevent further exposure.