School data breaches leave children, parents, employees vulnerable to identity theft
It’s the big corporate and government data breaches that get the most attention: 94 million credit records exposed in TJX hacking attack; US Department of Veterans Affairs loses records of 26 million current and former soldiers. When millions of people become vulnerable to identity theft because of laxity in security procedures, it should make the headlines.
But all too often it’s the smaller incidents that illustrate how vulnerable consumers really are. Unless you work for the East Burke High School in North Carolina, you might think that their little data breach is insignificant. If only 163 employees are affected, it might seem more like an “oops” than the egregious mishandling of private information that it really is.
For five years the employees’ names, Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses and job titles were posted on the school’s website. If this sort of careless, irresponsible oversight were a singular occurrence, it would be worthy of attention only in that small community. But it’s not.
So far this year, there have been 17 reported data breaches in public schools; more than 125,000 students, parents and employees have been affected. Some cases affected as few as 45 people; the largest included extensive information of 50,000 students, employees and community taxpayers. In three of these data losses, the schools were unable to determine how many people were affected.
The most common cause of these data breaches was lost or stolen mobile devices–laptops, jump drives or hard drives. Hackers were responsible for three of the losses. Improper Internet posts were the cause of three more.
In one case, an undetermined number of records were found in a recycling bin outside the school. In another, personal and financial information was exposed when students’ forms were inserted in the wrong envelopes, and mailed to the wrong families.
An increasing number of children are becoming victims of identity theft—a violation usually not detected for several years. Life Lock was the first, and is among the few identity theft protection companies to provide services to children. Visit their website at LifeLock.com and learn more about their innovations, and see what they can do to protect your family. Use the LifeLock discount code RD17 and receive a free month of services for yourself and your children.
