Officials probing data breach at UNC-Chapel Hill
Published 12:00 am Monday, December 16, 2013
CHAPEL HILL (AP) — The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is investigating a personal information data breach that affects more than 6,000 people.
The school says files containing information like names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth of some current and former employees, vendors and students were accidentally made public. A university official learned last month that some of those files were accessible on the Internet.
Less than two weeks later, the school says the files weren’t online anymore. Officials say some safeguards that protect such files had been accidentally disabled this summer while a computer was undergoing maintenance.
The school says it has begun notifying people whose information was affected and is sending out information on steps that people can take to monitor any potential fraudulent activity.