UC Berkeley: 80,000 staff, students compromised by hack

UC Berkeley is the latest entity to disclose a cyberattack that has left, in this case, students, faculty, vendors and staff exposed. According to the university's Janet Gilmore, public affairs, a "criminal cyberattack" was lobbed against one of the university's systems that stores bank account numbers and Social Security numbers. As such, it is possible some of the 80,000 individuals could have had their data stolen, though there are no signs of such at this time.

The university has issued a public notice, and will also be sending out alerts to the 80,000 or so affected individuals. According to a statement, the university has found no evidence that the personal data was actually accessed or stolen, but students and faculty should be on alert regardless for any potential identity theft issues that arise.

Says Gilmore, the cyberattack took place this past December, and involved the university's Berkeley Financial System. Hackers were able to gain access via an unspecified security issue that is now in the process of being patched. Both the FBI and law enforcement were notified of the attack. Of the 80,000 or so potential victims, about 57,000 are students.

Said UC Berkeley's Chief Information Security Officer Paul Rivers, "The security and privacy of the personal information provided to the university is of great importance to us. We regret that this occurred and have taken additional measures to better safeguard that information."

SOURCE: UC Berkeley