Texas A&M University seems to be having frequent problems with their computer system suffering security breaches. It is reported that for the fourth time in two years, the university has exposed social security numbers of current and former students.

One of their students did an internet search on the university web site and found information that included applicants who were admitted to the university in 2005. The information found included the social security number of the student who initiated the search.

The web site was shut down temporarily so the document could be removed.

“We take this very seriously and it is always disappointing when something like this happens,” A&M-Corpus Christi President Flavius Killebrew said Friday.

The university Executive Vice President of Finance and Administration advised that letters of all individuals affected were to be mailed out this past Monday. The time frame involved is not currently known and authorities are working to figure out how long the information was able to be viewed on the internet.

This is the most recent incident reported by the university. An earlier occurrence took place in September 2008 when a computer server was illegally accessed by an outside hacker, also exposing records that included student social security numbers.

A flash drive containing social security numbers of students was misplaced back in June of 2007 and to wrap up the list, a class roster of 49 students’ was misplaced that contained social security numbers. The use of social security numbers as identifiers was discontinued in the fall of 2007.

A university employee will be reprimanded for the availability of such numbers in the most recent incident. These were to be wiped off of the server’s archives.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 13th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Data Breach. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.