What kind of information did UC Berkeley hackers breach?
According tech.yahoo.com/news, University of California, Berkeley, officials said Friday that hackers infiltrated restricted computer databases, putting at risk health and other personal information on 160,000 students, alumni and others. The university said data include Social Security numbers, birth dates, health insurance information and some medical records dating back to 1999. Personal medical records — such as patient diagnoses, treatments and therapies — were not compromised, officials said. The databases also included personal information of parents, spouses and Mills College students who used or were eligible for Berkeley’s health services. In all, 97,000 Social Security numbers were stolen, said Shelton Waggener, UC Berkeley’s associate vice chancellor for information technology and its chief information officer. Sources: http://tech.yahoo.
The hackers had access to Berkeley records from 1999 onward, and Mills College records from 2001 onward. This info included 97,000 social security numbers, health insurance information, immunization records, and names of people’s doctors and the dates of their visits (not treatment information, though). Nobody knows for sure if its enough information to steal any of these people’s identities and no students have reported being victims of identity theft so far. Sources: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/09/BAPA17H89B.
The school said that the server breach occurred October 6,2008 and lasted until April 9,2009. The staff found out about the breach while performing routine maintenance. Messages were found on the computers that were left by hackers. The school has said evidence points to overseas criminal operations.
