University of Maryland Hacked 300,000 Records Breached

University of Maryland Hacked 300,000 Records Breached

The University of Maryland has fallen victim to vicious cyber attack Wednesday afternoon. On February 19, 2014 the University of Maryland put out an official statement confirming they experienced a catastrophic data breach. Of the breached records files contain associates name, Social Security number, date of birth, and University identification number. “No financial, academic, contact, or health information was compromised.” Wallace D. Loh, President at University of Maryland assures students and faculty.

Of the breached documents 309,079 records of faculty, staff, students and affiliated personnel have been stolen, dating from 1998 to 2014. The University of Maryland is offering one free year of credit monitoring to everyone who fell victim to the data breach. The University has not released any information on how the breach may have occurred. Wallace D. Loh, President at University of Maryland, has stated that computer forensic investigators are looking into how the breach may have occurred.

Recently the University of Maryland has doubled their “IT security engineers and analysts.” While also doubling their investment in “top-end security tools.” While the University of Maryland is now upgrading their security, the question is why was none of the data encrypted? The official document notes nothing of documents begin encrypted or anything similar. Users of Reddit have also noted the security system is outdated, and SSN’s along with other data are entered in plain text.

With the documents breached thieves and malicious hackers could engage in identity theft amongst other crimes. With the data begin in plain text this will make crimes seamless for malicious use. Wallace stated “I am truly sorry. Computer and data security are a very high priority of our University.” While the University of Maryland is investigating the stolen records, hackers are sitting on a goldmine of unencrypted records.