The university has purged its databases of about 140,000 names, Social Security numbers, birth dates and university IDs of former students that were compromised in a massive data breach, university President Wallace Loh said.
University officials have also learned how an attacker obtained the personal information of more than 309,000 students, faculty and staff members dating back to 1998, and they have taken measures to protect university systems from an identical method of attack. For security purposes, university officials did not disclose how the data was obtained.
After officials learned of the attack two weeks ago, they informed much of the community within two days and have since offered those affected up to five years of free credit protection with Experian.
Officials are also working on purging the names of former faculty and staff from the affected databases, which Loh said they hope to complete soon.
The process has taken some time, Loh said, because officials must first ensure that these students and faculty do not need any university services, such as financial aid or paychecks, that would require their Social Security number to be stored in an information database.
Additionally, officials are seeking ways to purge information for current students who were affected without disabling their university IDs or financial services.
