Ohio State Database Exposes Confidential Information

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According to the on-line edition of Computerworld, a database containing social security numbers of approximately 14,000 current and former employees at Ohio State University has been the most recent source of possible identity theft. This situation apparently involved foreign thieves from three different countries hacking into an Ohio State University database containing sensitive employee information. The data breach occurred over a two day time period and was shut down the day after university employees discovered the breach.

The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse maintains a list of data intrusions which have occurred since 2005. As of April 12, 2007, the organization lists a total of 153,558,451 data breaches which have occurred. After so many data intrusions over the past year, I guess we have started becoming numb to the numerous reports of stolen identities and the theft of sensitive information. Lets hope that companies have not started becoming numb to the need to protect sensitive data on company computer systems.