[Dataloss] More colleges are scrambling due to SunGard

[rchick]

Major College Software Vendor Puts Students at Many Campuses at Risk of
Identity TheftThursday, April 24, 2008
http://chronicle.com/free/2008/04/2619n.htm

At least 18 colleges are scrambling to inform tens of thousands of students
they are at risk of having their identities stolen after SunGard, a leading
software vendor, reported that a laptop owned by one of its consultants was
stolen.

The complete extent of the problem is still unknown, though many of the
campuses that have been identified are in Connecticut and New York. The
laptop contained students' names and Social Security numbers. In some cases,
the exposed data also included financial aid information, e-mail addresses,
birth dates, and driver-identification numbers.

Now college officials are accusing SunGard of waiting too long—about one
month—to inform them of the security breach. The Connecticut attorney
general has opened an inquiry into the incident. And there are widespread
concerns that SunGard may not be adequately protecting college data.

SunGard Higher Education, the division of the company that employed the
consultant, said it found out on March 13 that the laptop was stolen.
Colleges said they weren't told of the theft until the second week of April.
A spokeswoman for the company, Laura Kvinge, said that was not an undue
delay, noting that the company needed to analyze backup data to determine
the affected colleges before alerting them.

SunGard has set up a Web page <http://www.sungardhe.com/laptoptheft> and a
24-hour toll-free telephone number to answer customers' questions about the
incident, and has offered to pay for one year of credit monitoring for
affected students.

That has not mollified Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut's attorney general.
"We are extremely troubled by the delay in alerting us about the breach in
security," Mr. Blumenthal said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
"SunGard waited about a month, which is inexcusable."

M. Jodi Rell, Connecticut's governor, in a written statement, also faulted
SunGard for the delay.
[...]
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