[Dataloss] Columbia University (NY) has posted SSNs on line for 16 months

[Henry Brown]

 From the NY Sun http://tinyurl.com/5fnfxq
Columbia Students Outraged By Online Privacy Breach
By ANNA PHILLIPS, Special to the Sun
June 12, 2008

Angry Columbia University students are demanding an investigation after 
it was discovered yesterday that 5,000 of their Social Security numbers 
had been searchable online for the last 16 months.

Students received an e-mail message on Tuesday night from the vice 
president of student auxiliary and business services, Scott Wright, 
explaining that in February 2007, a student employee had posted a 
database of students' housing information, including this reporter's, on 
a Google-hosted Web site.

"No financial data was included in the file in question, and we have no 
evidence of wrongdoing or identity theft," Mr. Wright said in the e-mail 
message. "We are very sorry for this occurrence."

Columbia would not identify the student, saying only that the person had 
worked in the university's housing office.

Administrators said they learned about the security breach June 3 when 
an alumna contacted the housing office. Google removed the Web site upon 
request.

As a result of the security breach, Columbia is offering students a free 
two-year subscription to a credit monitoring service.

Yesterday, students informed the school that the information of about 
200 students was still searchable.

A Columbia spokesman, Robert Hornsby, said Google had removed the file 
as of yesterday evening.

Several students yesterday created an online petition and posted it to 
the main campus Web log, demanding that the university investigate the 
former employee and issue a report explaining how security will be 
increased.

A similar leak occurred in April 2007, when the university noticed that 
three databases containing students' addresses and Social Security 
numbers were online.