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Binghamton University Data Breach

March 13, 2009 – 3:11 pm

Most data breach stories are rather boring and includes talk about how companies fail to protect their data. Most companies and organizations have a least one data breach at one time or another. Binghamton University has had many and can’t seem to get their act together. One would assume they would learn from their mistakes.

In the past the University has accidentally e-mailed a list of 338 students’ social security numbers to 200 other students. The University also accidentally sent exchange students information including passports and birth certificates to other student groups. They have also been caught throwing out documents, with personal information on them, without being shredded before discarding them.

A reporter was exploring a major lecture hall that is open to the public and stays open late. The reporter found a door that had been tapped open to prevent it from locking. Inside the door was a two-story storage room filled with filing cabinets. Inside these cabinets were all kinds of sensitive documents. Documents that included:

• Records of tuition payments sorted by Social Security number.
• Receipts for tuition payments, complete with credit card account information.
• Residency records with tax information and copies of students’ parents’ Social Security cards.
• Scans of students’ Social Security cards, driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations.
• Scans of a letter from the U.S. government granting a student’s mother asylum.
• Scans of W-9 tax forms from a student’s parents, both parents’ social security numbers, tax forms for the parents’ business and Social Security numbers and vital information for the parents’ employees.
• Undeliverable mail that included students’ names, addresses and Social Security numbers.

I feel that having the documents there, unlocked and unprotected, was irresponsible of the University. I don’t think the reporter should have went through all the files and taken pictures and I feel it was an invasion of the school’s and the student’s privacy, but all the same I feel that ultimately the University should do a better job of protecting their students and themselves.

The University even has an information security officer that works full time to prevent incidents like this one from happening. The information security officer was hired after all their other incidents to prevent new data breaches but I guess these unlocked unprotected filing cabinets are beyond his job description.

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