KLAS-TV Channel 8 News Las VegasCCSN Warns 197,000 Students of Computer Security Breach
There's a warning for current and former students at the Community College of Southern Nevada to check their credit.
School officials say a virus attacked one of the school's computer servers, which possibly contained students' personal information, names, social security numbers and dates of birth. Eyewitness News discovered this affects 197,000 people.
Identity Theft Plan of Action & links to Equifax, Experian & TransUnion.
The attack happened on the West Charleston and Torrey Pines campus, but could have been launched from anywhere. The virus bounced from place to place over the Internet hiding its tracks before attaching to a server at CCSN.
CCSN president Richard Carpenter says the virus could have allowed a hacker to access student records on the server but that it is not certain whether anything was actually stolen from the school's computer system.
Carpenter says the malicious virus attack happened at the end of February. However, a letter warning the potential victims of identity theft was mailed at the end of last week.
The school did notify every person who may have been affected, which includes anyone who took even one class at CCSN from 2000 to now.
Carpenter says the school waited to notify the current and former students until technicians finished their investigation. "Our reason for alerting the students involved is not because we think their data was acquired. We don't. But there is an outside possibility it was," Carpenter explained.
School technicians discovered the virus four days after it attached to the server. They pulled the server offline and had each of the 197,000 files examined to see if it was downloaded. The school then sent the server to a third-party for an examination.
Again, CCSN President Richard Carpenter thinks no information was taken, but cannot be sure. That's why the school mailed letters to all potential victims and replaced all social security numbers in all the servers with school identification numbers.
Carpenter said, "What we have tried to do is minimize it so that if there is a subsequent attack, what the hacker might find would be useless."
Tanya Brown goes to work every day secure in the fact that she has nearly perfect credit. She pays her bills and watches what information she gives out. She never thought two classes she took for fun could ruin her security.
"In a word, it's just panic. You don't want anyone to get a hold of your social security number, your personal information," she said.
Brown took two French classes from 2000 to 2002. The news that a virus may have given a hacker access to her name, social security number, and date of birth left her very concerned.
"It's terrible that there are so many students who come here for an education and now they have to go check their credit report constantly and be on the alert," Brown continued.
Even a slim chance Brown's personal information is in the wrong hands will have her taking steps for a little prevention now to avoid years of work to fix her credit.
Brown has actually taken an extra step. She paid $80 for the year to have a credit company watch her accounts and notify her by text every time a new account is opened.
This was the first attack of its kind on the CCSN computer system in the school's 35-year history. The school recommends that students check their annual credit report.
