14 DAY TRIAL // University officials discovered recently a thing that left them speechless. A file containing a large quantity of sensitive information belonging to employees that worked at the institution in 2002 was hosted on a public server.
According to Athens Patch, the file contained things like social Security number, name, date of birth, home phone number and home address.
Even though it's not the first time the UGA messes up, this time the mess was bigger as almost 19,000 faculty members could be affected by the unfortunate incident.
The file was quickly removed, but an initial investigation revealed that the legitimate document, intended for administrative purposes, has been posted online since 2008, which means that a lot of people may have accessed it.
“We deeply regret this situation and will take steps to notify and support the affected current and former faculty and staff,” revealed UGA’s Chief Information Officer, Timothy Chester.
He also stated that they hope this will be the last incident of this sort and to prevent from further such issues, they are closely working with an organization that's specialized in dealing with data leaks.
The victims of this data spill had no way of preventing a possible identity theft attempt, as they had no clue to what was happening. Anyway, this should teach us to constantly check our bank accounts for abnormal activity even if we don't spend much time on the internet, shopping or performing other bank account related activities.
Because employers keep most of our data in a digital format, administrative slip-ups are bound to happen and that's why we should keep our assets under careful supervision.
Other recommendations to protect yourself against identity theft include:
– the proper disposal of financial documents; – never give out personal information over the internet or the phone, unless you are certain you're dealing with trusted parties; – be on the lookout for phishing attempts launched on the internet.