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100,000 at risk of ID theft as breach hits University of Florida

Close to 100,000 people are at risk of being exposed to ID theft after the online security of a computer system belonging to the University of Florida was compromised.

The university is contacting more that 97,000 people who are believed to have been affected by the breach, which affected the system containing the personal information of the people.

Affected files contained the names and social security numbers of students, faculty and staff who may have used the computer system between 1996 and 2009, the institution said.

An IT staff member discovered the breach on January 14th while carrying out a systems review. An investigation was immediately launched after the system was shut down to make way for the examination.

Such an incident highlights the importance of having online security measures such as data encryption, says internet security expert Graham Cluley of Sophos.

"If the worst happens and hackers manage to gain access to your systems at least they won't be able to do anything with the gobbledygooked information," he said.

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