14 DAY TRIAL // Highly sensitive information belonging to around 5,000 students was exposed after a computer error caused a federal government student loan website to reveal the data.
According to The Daily Caller, a glitch in the website allowed students who were logged in to freely view the data of other scholars. Fortunately, the site was compromised only for 7 minutes at most.
“We responded as quickly as we could,” said James Runcie, chief operation officer of Federal Student Aid at the Department of Education.
“In terms of overall security architecture, that’s something we are very concerned about, and investing meaningful sums of money. But when you have this scale of a system in transition sometimes glitches occur.”
To make sure things don't get out of hand, the website was quickly shut down for 48 hours and all the ones who could have been affected were immediately contacted.
Even though the issue didn't last much, since social security numbers were exposed, anyone of those involved could fall victim to identity theft.
As it turns out, the debates that surround the recently implemented Direct Loan Program were not unfounded. Even though most people expressed concerns about the lack of customer and counseling services, it looks as the system has some serious weaknesses.
“Although the Department of Education had lofty promises of strong customer service when this transition began, many schools have voiced concerns about increasing instances of problems and mistakes,” revealed Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina GOP representative after students began complaining about the issues in the loan site.
Companies should be more careful when handling large amounts of information, especially when dealing with somewhat experimental programs. Security researchers find flaws even in websites that are known to be highly secure, not to mention recently developed web applications.