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Hackers Raid Duke Law Web Site
Prospective Duke Law School students may be sharing their personal information with more than just the admissions office. Hackers made their way into the school's Web site last week and may have gained access to the Social Security numbers of 1,400 prospective applicants who requested information from the school's admissions office. A Duke University announcement yesterday said that the law school has notified the 1,400 prospects that their Social Security numbers may be at risk and to take steps to protect against identity theft.
"The intrusion was discovered last Thursday by school officials, who quickly took the site offline as a precautionary measure, said William J. Hoye, the law school's associate dean of admissions. During their ensuing security evaluations of the website and server over the next several days, Duke computer experts found the database containing the Social Security numbers and determined that it was exposed during the attack."
The school does not know whether the hackers actually downloaded any of the Social Security numbers, but its announcement said it would restructure its application-tracking pages to eliminate the need for passwords.
The Duke student newspaper reports that law school officials "have some ideas" about who hacked into the school's site. "We do have a sense of what happened and how the intruders got into the site, but it's still being investigated," the school's communications director said.
Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on December 5, 2007 at 03:52 PM | Permalink
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