ARLINGTON — Health records can be a treasure trove for hackers. In June, the University of Texas at Arlington discovered that a Student Health Services file server had been compromised four times between February 2009 and February 2010.
The breaches potentially exposed prescription files on nearly 30,000 faculty, staff and students — including chemistry major Dona Toumeh.
"I didn't know they were breached four times," she said. " I wasn't aware of that."
Toumeh said UTA did notify her that someone might have accessed sensitive information.
School officials said just over 2,000 Social Security numbers in the files might be jeopardized. For those individuals, UTA is offering free credit monitoring.
But the school emphasizes that there is no evidence that hackers actually stole the data.
"I think I'm OK," Toumeh said, but she's starting to have doubts. "I hope I'm OK. Now I think I should contact them. I'm not very sure if I did give out my Social Security or not, but I didn't know it was that important."
That's typical. UTA says only a handful of people have responded to thousands of letters sent out.
This is the latest of many attacks on campus computer systems across America. Last year, hackers accessed 160,000 health center files at the University of California at Berkeley. Last month, hackers obtained files on 53,000 at the University of Hawaii.
UTA has since secured the health center computer files. It's also set up a toll-free call center to answer questions: 800-913-3055.
E-mail jdouglas@wfaa.com
