University of Central Florida (UCF) has recently faced a cybersecurity threat, nearly 63,000 Social Security numbers and names of former and current students and employees of University of Central Florida (UCF) were stolen by hackers.
The FBI's Jacksonville office is investigating the case with UCF Police and other agencies, it sent out notifications to all U.S. colleges "in an effort to identify other potential victims."
In January, UCF first realized the problem but didn't announce the hack publicly until a month later of the hack.
Students those affected includes 600 current student-athletes, former student-athletes who last played sports in 2014-15, student staff managers of the teams and other related positions. The rest are current UCF employees as well as those who worked at UCF as far back as the 1980s.
According to the director of Indiana University's Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research, Von Welch, this case reveals how hackers are frequent at stealing data and how such attacks are the new reality for schools, governments and others.
"It's an extremely hard situation for folks like UCF to be in," Welch said. "They have the large databases … All it takes is one mistake for hackers to exploit. If you're anything less than perfect, these hacks can occur."
Joel Hartman, head of university's information technology department, said we ourselves are unclear who is responsible behind this attack, but from initial investigation it is likely to be done by multiple individuals.
"All the information we have indicates there has been no attempt to use this information for identity theft or fraud or other financial means," Hartman said.
Those affected by the hack will be notified by letters that are expected to be mailed Friday.
To tackle this situation the university also launched a website to answer questions at www.ucf.edu/datasecurity.
The FBI's Jacksonville office is investigating the case with UCF Police and other agencies, it sent out notifications to all U.S. colleges "in an effort to identify other potential victims."
In January, UCF first realized the problem but didn't announce the hack publicly until a month later of the hack.
Students those affected includes 600 current student-athletes, former student-athletes who last played sports in 2014-15, student staff managers of the teams and other related positions. The rest are current UCF employees as well as those who worked at UCF as far back as the 1980s.
According to the director of Indiana University's Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research, Von Welch, this case reveals how hackers are frequent at stealing data and how such attacks are the new reality for schools, governments and others.
"It's an extremely hard situation for folks like UCF to be in," Welch said. "They have the large databases … All it takes is one mistake for hackers to exploit. If you're anything less than perfect, these hacks can occur."
Joel Hartman, head of university's information technology department, said we ourselves are unclear who is responsible behind this attack, but from initial investigation it is likely to be done by multiple individuals.
"All the information we have indicates there has been no attempt to use this information for identity theft or fraud or other financial means," Hartman said.
Those affected by the hack will be notified by letters that are expected to be mailed Friday.
To tackle this situation the university also launched a website to answer questions at www.ucf.edu/datasecurity.