University of Central Florida – Hack that Exposed Thousands of Students’ & Employees’ PII

While the Healthcare industry may still be huge target for cyber criminals, Educational Institutions (i.e. colleges, universities, etc) aren’t far behind on the Hacker Hit List. The data that both industries keep on their constituents is a treasure trove to hackers that they can easily monetize on the Dark Web. Without the proper cyber security and incident response programs in place, Healthcare and institutions of higher learning may as well put up a sign that says “Here! Take our data!”

University of Central Florida (UCF) announced earlier this week that they discovered their systems had been hacked in January, but waited until they had full detail of what exactly happened.

About 63,000 Social Security numbers and names of former and current UCF students and employees were stolen by hackers, officials disclosed Thursday, part of a growing cybersecurity threat faced by schools and other large institutions.
The FBI’s Jacksonville office, which is investigating the case with UCF Police and other agencies, said it has sent out notifications to all U.S. colleges “in an effort to identify other potential victims.” FBI officials would not elaborate.
UCF first realized there was a problem in early January but didn’t announce the hack publicly until nearly a month later as it worked with authorities and experts to determine the details of what happened, officials said.
Among those affected are about 600 current student-athletes, former student-athletes who last played sports in 2014-15, student staff managers for 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.
Those positions affected include undergraduate student employees (including those in work-study jobs); graduate assistants; housing resident assistants; adjunct faculty instructors; student government leaders and faculty members who were paid for teaching additional classes, according to the university.

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