Data thieves nab 55,000 student records

Online attackers have stolen information on more than 55,000 students and teaching staff from insecure database servers at the University of Texas at Austin.

Discovered on Sunday night, the attack used millions of randomly generated Social Security numbers to request records from the school's database, resulting in 55,200 matches, Daniel A. Updegrove, the university's vice president of information technology, said in a statement. In addition to Social Security numbers, the data includes names, addresses and email addresses.

"[The University of Texas], in conjunction with the US Attorney's Office, the US Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies, has focused its efforts since Sunday evening on identifying the perpetrator of the break-in and recapturing the stolen data," Updegrove said in the statement. "To date there is no evidence that the stolen data have been distributed beyond the computer of the perpetrator."

The data heist comes after several major thefts that have put a spotlight on the inadequate protection of consumer data in the US. In February, a data processing centre in Nebraska revealed that eight million credit card numbers had been stolen from its servers, and, in January, the University of Kansas acknowledged that online attackers had accessed the records of 1,400 international students.

Updegrove could not immediately be reached for comment, nor could representatives at the Austin, Texas, offices of the US Secret Service and the US Attorney General.

Past and present students, faculty, staff and job applicants could be affected, according to the statement. Officials at the university are discussing the best way to inform those whose data is at risk. The university stressed in the advisory that student academic records and personal health information were not disclosed.

Robert Lemos writes for News.com