Maricopa Community Colleges IT breach (real estate, 2013, sex offender)

[Bondurant]

A letter from MCC sat on my table for a week. This morning I finally opened it to find a warning that my personal information may have been compromised. I went out onto the net and found this article & video clip on AZ Central from 11/27. It alleges that MCC sat on the info for 6 months before notifying anyone of the situation. I missed the news completely and was not aware until I read the letter, dated December 11, this morning. Read any mail you may receive from MCC. I assumed it was junk and nearly threw it away. Also, click the link below for the report from The Arizona Republic & NBC 12.

http://www.azcentral.com/community/p...ta-breach.html

[azdr0710]

I got that letter, too, and I never went to an MCC school (that I remember)....it seems to be more an ad for signing up for identity protection.....

[pbenjamin]

I also got the letter. Note that the Republic article says

Students’ academic information also may have been exposed, but not their personal information.

[Ponderosa]

Got it too. I get three letters a year at least to the same effect from one firm or another. Our info is out there and routinely is compromised. What are you going to do about it? It is just life in the 21st century, though MCC should not have sat on it for 6 months before notifying people even though keeping mum about it would have saved a lot of money (gets back to what is one to do about it anyway).

[Sandduner]

I got one and so did my son....he's 16 and we have never had an contact with MCC.
I found it funny in the letter it said " no credit card info was compromised ", only your name, address, social sec number , date of birth, and email.
With all that given out, a thief could pretty much obtain whatever he wants.
Not sure why we received the letters , kinda strange.

[Zippyman]

the info might be a little less dangerous if the schools werent *retaining* your social security numbers - under current Az law, they need to *verify* your citizenship, but they dont need to *retain* that info. Its a bit of a hassle anyway, since the schools are all interconnected & allow you to bounce among them, but you need to prove citizenship at each of the "connected" schools you attend. I've had to submit that private info to four different schools so far.

the disadvantage of all the "prove you are here legally" stuff is that legal citizens end up with *all* of their important info stored on multiple (poorly maintained & insecure) government databases.

at some point there needs to be a public backlash to all of this information collection & retention - both by the government and by the ineffectively regulated private sector.

I was a little miffed when I saw that Kroll was the repository charged with "monitoring" the accuracy of my credit reports. A few years back, I was hired for a job, subject to a background check by Kroll. They told my future employer that I was a convicted sex offender based on a half-assed background check. I lost two weeks pay while they figured out that Kroll's records were incorrect. I basically had to prove that I was innocent, despite the fact that I carry a DPS level-one fingerprint card. Never got any sort of apology from Kroll for libeling my reputation & I wasnt able to sue because the employer wouldnt cough up the written (erronious) report that Kroll provided.

[omaraz]

It appears that this is a real incident but it also appears to be manufactured possibly by the company that offers the credit monitoring services. There are a few universities that had that same thing, Drew University, University of Hawaii, Kapiolani CC, Honolulu CC and Broome (MD) Community College and they are all served by IDintegrity.com. I'm sure there are more schools but those are the ones that came up with a quick search. The interesting thing is that the University of Hawaii got sued and subsequently paid for credit monitoring as part of the settlement. I wouldn't put it past these credit monitoring companies to employ hackers to access the information and create a breach and then have the university pay for the students whose data was compromised.

[AZgarden]

I got that letter too. Have had nothing to do with MCC for several years, since I took a real estate course at a community college.
So not worried. BUT I am concerned about TARGET. That is something that might affect me (and 40 million others too).

[caryberry]

Everyone in my household received the "letter" from MCC.

As per my conversation with a representative from Kroll (the credit monitoring company hired by MCC) last Friday:

- 2.5 million records have been compromised
- Student records dating back 40 years are (1973) have been effected

Given the pathetic computer systems (especially student records and on-line registration) that MCC spends millions of dollars supporting - everyone in the IT Department should be fired.

[Zippyman]

Originally Posted by caryberry

Everyone in my household received the "letter" from MCC.

As per my conversation with a representative from Kroll (the credit monitoring company hired by MCC) last Friday:

- 2.5 million records have been compromised
- Student records dating back 40 years are (1973) have been effected

Given the pathetic computer systems (especially student records and on-line registration) that MCC spends millions of dollars supporting - everyone in the IT Department should be fired.

Given my own experiences with Kroll, I think I'm less scared with hackers having my personal info than I am with Kroll having it. I wouldn't trust those guys with a used diaper, much less my soc number.