14 DAY TRIAL // After Ohio, Purdue Notre Dame, Purdue and Georgetown, the hackers turned their eyes to another educational center in the United States.
Sacred Heart University recently discovered that the security system on one of their computers containing personal information was breached.
According to the university's site, the hackers gained access to the personal information of 135,000 individuals, whose names, addresses and social security numbers have been revealed.
The university officials say that there haven't been any reports of identity fraud related to this incident, but that those whose data has been compromised have been notified.
It's interesting to notice that in some cases, the data stolen by hackers didn't belong to students or professors at Sacred Heart, but to potential students.
One of the most serious cases of data theft was recently recorded at the University of Ohio, where the hackers had access to data of some 60,000 students for a year.
According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, since February 2005 over 50 million people have had their personal information potentially exposed by unauthorized access to the computer systems of companies and institutions; 50% of all reported security breaches since February 2005 have occurred at colleges and universities.
Analysts believe that the number of attacks in which hackers succeed to steal the students' data proves that universities don't take this threat seriously, which is rather strange considering the amount and type of information.