Yale University has just discovered it was the victim of a data breach in 2008 and 2009, and now school officials are warning personal information including social security numbers and dates of birth were stolen.
The breach occurred between April 2008 and January 2009, according to a notice from the school. In 2011, Yale deleted personal information in that database as part of an effort to protect personal information on Yale servers, but at that time IT did not realize the breach occurred. Yale learned of the breach in June 2018, when the school was testing its servers for vulnerabilities.
The information accessed includes names, social security numbers, dates of birth, and in some cases email addresses and physical addresses.
The school does not know who accessed the data and said experts believe tracking down the perpetrators is “not feasible.”
Yale has reached out to those affected directly and is offering identity monitoring services to all affected US residents.
The university took steps to protect personal information years ago, including stopping the use of social security numbers as routine identifiers, creating limitations on sharing social security numbers within the system, and testing data servers regularly for possible vulnerabilities.
Anyone who did not receive a letter but has concerns their information may be vulnerable can call 1-833-228-5711.
