14 DAY TRIAL // Hacker attacks are an ever increasing phenomenon, and no one seems to be safe anymore. This is especially valid for the public institutions, which are amongst the hacker's most favorite targets.
The latest case of this type is that of the University of Southern California, whose officials said that they will contact everyone who used the school's online application system in the past eight years to warn them that a hacker may have been able to read their files, as reported by BusinessWeek.
The officials in charge of the school's security system said that they intend to contact about 270,000 people, although it seems that the hacker looked at only about 10 files, accessing student names, addresses and Social Security numbers, but not to credit card numbers or other financial information.
"Although we believe that the scope of this is pretty small, we're taking it very seriously and we are taking great care to notify every single person where there is even the potential that their records might have been viewed," said L. Katharine Harrington, USC's dean of admission and financial aid.
The hacker exploited a security flaw he discovered while trying to use the USC Web site on June 20, said Robert M. Wood, USC's information security officer.
The offices also said the matter has been turned over to the FBI for investigation, but he doubted that any criminal case will be pursued, because, as Wood added, "There doesn't appear to have been any malicious attempt to gather data".
Since the middle of last year, computer security lapses also have been reported at other California schools, such as UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco and Cal State Chico, as well as Northwestern University and Tufts University.