University of Wisconsin Warns of Major Data Breach

Tens of thousands of former University of Wisconsin students and staff members this week continued to receive advisory letters from the University, warning them that hackers managed to break into a database containing their social security numbers and other sensitive information.

Worse, according to the letter, it appears the hackers had unbridled access to the database for more than two years, putting at least 60,000 former students and employees at risk. School officials first began notifying affected individuals on Nov. 30, almost a month after the breach was first detected.

According to University of Wisconsin officials, the data breach was discovered in late October, when the Wisconsin Union, which administers the campus ID card program, noticed that a database was repeatedly accessed going back as far as January 2008. A compromised file in the database included social security numbers associated with individual photo IDs and names.