Data breaches rock Auburn, UC Riverside

Two more colleges are suffering from data breaches that exposed information on students and others, according to reports. 

Auburn University and the University of California (UC) Riverside revealed that unauthorized people gained access to the Social Security numbers of thousands of people.

{mosads}For Auburn, located in Alabama, the breach took place online in the process of “replacing a broken server,” university officials said.

More than 364,000 people had their names, addresses, birthdays, Social Security numbers and academic information exposed from September until March 2, when the system was taken offline. Some

Victims included not only current and former Auburn students, but prospective students who never applied to the university.

At UC Riverside, nearly 8,000 current and former graduate students, as well as applicants, had their personal information exposed after a desktop computer was stolen from the campus.

The computer contained unencrypted data on each individual, including Social Security numbers. It was stolen on March 13.

The two schools emphasized that there is no evidence the data in either breach has been used illegally.

But that does not mean victims are not at risk. Personal information, particularly Social Security numbers, can fetch a high price from identity thieves on the online black market.

The breaches underscore the vulnerability of colleges’ data online and in physical hardware.

At least four similar incidents took place last year at Indiana University, Butler University, the University of Maryland and North Dakota University. Data for roughly one million people was compromised in those cases, according to CNN Money.