We received our letter over the weekend - hopefully this is no big deal. Sons credit was already frozen and AU is offering 2 years of monitoring which I think we’ll accept. Is it considered a breach if it was not secured as opposed to improperly accessing or finding with mal-intent?
Well, seeing as the linked article is from a site called “databreaches”, I’d consider it a data breach! And having one’s SSN on line for months-- not good!
Thankfully, there’s no evidence it was misused or otherwise accessed during the leak, and it was fixed the same day it was discovered. I’m impressed with how transparent they have been since then, especially since many I know aren’t terribly concerned about the ‘breach’.
Yes, my husband is in the IT business and he said we’d probably freak if we knew how often this happens but no one knows because unless something bad happens, no one tells.
My friend’s dau is at Auburn. They were notified and offered the monitoring. The fact that this information was on the web for MONTHS is disturbing to say the very least. We have no way of knowing who may or may not have accessed any of that information of the 364K current and former students, as well as many who never even applied to the school! According to this article, my own kids could be at risk, as SAT scores were purchased and information exposed. Lovely. http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/04/auburn_university_could_have_s.html
True, but there are similar data breaches occurring all the time that we never hear about. Auburn taking the steps to fix the problem, notify all possible victims, and offer free monitoring seem to me to indicate this was handled the best possible way. As no financial information, and if I read correctly no SS numbers were exposed, not to mention that there’s no evidence anyone actually accessed the information during the time it was ‘exposed’ points to this not being something worth losing sleep over.
Read more carefully. Social security numbers WERE exposed. Possibly for months and months.
Forgive me for skimming, though I maintain my position that while the incident was unfortunate, the overall risk seems to have been relatively minimal.
We will have to wait and see. Sadly, there are many security breaches, and many we don’t know about, but the consequences are felt. As a HS’er, I assume you have never had to deal with the consequences of identity theft. You are lucky. It is no fun, to say the least. Count your blessings. We don’t know how they accessed our identity (which included SSN). But they did. Articles say the site was hacked into several times last fall. Will we ever know if the information was used? Maybe not.
My family has actually been dealing with identity theft for a number of years so I am fully aware what the consequences are, so that assumption is grossly misplaced.
Your family has. Meaning your parents (or some other relatives) have. Have you had to personally deal with it? Make the calls? Contact the finance houses? The credit card companies? Get the police reports? Freeze and thaw your credit when needed? Lets talk when you have. There is a vast difference between being aware of the consequences and personally dealing with it. I asked if you had ever dealt with it. You have not. The answer you gave was misleading. My assumption was accurate. Feel free to minimize the potential risk. If I had received that letter from Auburn, I’d take advantage of the credit monitoring. Fortunately our credit is frozen, and thanks to other publicly reported credit breaches, we’ve had several offers for credit monitoring! We accepted it, even with our credit frozen. No reason not to be doubly cautious.
I’m not quite understanding the hostility here, though perhaps I am seeing some where there is not any. I have been quite involved in our family’s multiple identity theft issues, though what business that is of yours, I am unsure. It tangentially relates the topic at hand, but I offered my opinion and that is that. You are free to disagree based on your experiences, and I am free to have my own opinion and not have to defend it with my life story.
I would appreciate keeping the discussion to the topic at hand instead of questioning my own credibility for an opinion made on an article I skimmed after finishing my homework and winding down for the night. There’s no reason to make this unpleasant for anyone when it’s really just a casual discussion. I get that this is a parents’ board but I don’t need to be condescended to simply for offering a differing opinion.
Editing your response multiple times instead of responding again makes it awfully confusing to respond to you, unless that’s the intention.
You misinterpret the tone. You are correct that there is not any from my end, other than annoyance with the inaccurate and disengenuous comment about your personal experience with dealing with identity theft. If you don’t want to have your credibility questioned or your accusations challenged, don’t be misleading. Also annoying is the accusation of being intentionally misleading. Also incorrect. There is a reason I started this thread in the PARENTS forum. It was intended to be discussed with parents, who may have a different experience and perspective on protecting their assets. Enough.
I believe the same letter went to all persons that had possible data exposure and some may have had their name and personal mailing address, high school and testing results exposed - i.e. prospects who did not apply but fell into the bracket of colleges they were selected as engineering or having a vet school, etc and fit the parameters through Collgeboard, SAT and ACT. We’ll just have to wait and see if there are any financial ramifications. Hopefully nothing negative.