Uc Berkeley Computers Hacked, 160,000 At Risk

[Peaches]

May 8, 2009 1:53 PM PDT

UC Berkeley computers hacked, 160,000 at risk

by Michelle Meyers

"Hackers broke into University of California, Berkeley's health services center computer and potentially stole the personal information of more than 160,000 students, alumni, and others, the university announced Friday.

At particular risk of identity theft are some 97,000 individuals whose Social Security numbers were accessed in the breach, but it's still unclear whether hackers were able to match up those SSNs with individual names, Shelton Waggener, UCB's chief technology officers, said in a press conference Friday afternoon.

The attackers accessed a public Web site and then bypassed additional secured databases stored on the same server. In addition to SSNs, the databases contained health insurance information and non-treatment medical information, such as immunization records and names of doctors patients had seen. No medical records (i.e. patient diagnoses, treatments and therapies) were taken, as they are stored in a separate system, emphasized Steve Lustig, associate vice chancellor for health and human services.

"Their ID has not been stolen," he added. "Some data has been stolen."

story CNET - http://news.cnet.com/security/