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February 11, 2008, 03:58 PM ET
More Colleges Suffered Data Losses in 2007 Than in 2006, Study Finds
More than a million private records of students were compromised in campus-security breaches in the United States last year, and the number of colleges reporting such incidents was far higher than the previous year, according to a study that analyzed reports on computer security by the news media and computer-security organizations.
In 2007, 112 colleges reported computer-security incidents, up from 65 in 2006. The total number of incidents last year was 139, up from 83 the previous year. (Some colleges suffered more than one incident per year.)
About 100 of the incidents exposed Social Security numbers, involving a total of 1,085,708 records.
A growing number of colleges suffered breaches involving educational data like student grades and class schedules. Last year 30 incidents involved educational data, while only one incident involved that type of data the previous year.
It is unclear whether some of the increase in reported incidents can be attributed to an increase in the media’s interest in writing about computer security.
The study was done by Adam D. Dodge of the Educational Security Incidents Web site. The project started while Mr. Dodge was a graduate student in computer-security at Norwich University. He now works as the assistant director for information security at Eastern Illinois University, but he says his work on the report is not connected with his role there. —Jeffrey R. Young
Categories: Security
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