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July 25, 2008, 02:14 PM ET
Security Snafu at Medical-Education Group Leaves 500 Social Security Numbers Posted Online
Carelessness by an employee at the Centers for Osteopathic Research and Education resulted in the inadvertent posting of personal information for about 500 people affiliated with the group, a consortium of universities and other institutions.
In the incident, human error resulted in the wrong file being posted to a public Web site. The posted file contained Social Security numbers, phone numbers, addresses, and other details about people who have spoken at the research center.
The mistake was detected last week by a nurse, and the group has quickly taken action—removing the data, offering identity-monitoring services to the effected people, and placing an employee on paid administrative leave while they look into what happened.
“It is a shame that, in the electronic age, a clerical error can produce such unintended consequences,” said Keith Watson, chairman of the research center’s board of directors, in a statement. “But that makes it all the more important that we learn from this situation and do all we can to prevent anything like this from happening again.”—Jeffrey R. Young
Editor’s Note: The original version of this report erroneously stated that the data leak took place at Ohio University. Though Ohio University is a member of the CORE consortium, it was not directly involved in the latest incident.
Categories: Security
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