Identity Theft at CAL?

pootie562
Fri, 08 May 2009 13:09:23 +0000

I just checked my calmail today and got this message,

Colleagues,
We want to let you know that today the campus is sending notification letters and
emails to members of our community to inform them of a computer breach that resulted
in the theft of personal information from databases in our University Health
Services, UHS, area.

The victims of this crime are current and former students, as well as their parents
and spouses if linked to insurance coverage, who had UHS health care coverage or
received services. We are also sending notification letters to Mills College
students who received, or were eligible to receive, healthcare on the UC Berkeley
campus.

We sincerely regret and apologize for any difficulty this theft may create for
individuals who may have had their personal information exposed. We have alerted
campus police detectives and the FBI, and are doing all that we can to investigate
this crime. All of the exposed databases were immediately removed from service to
make sure that they would be completely protected from any future attacks.

Those individuals directly affected by the theft will receive letters with detailed
information on steps that they can take to protect their credit and identity. We
have launched a dedicated web site, http://datatheft.berkeley.edu that contains
detailed information for affected individuals, the media and the general public. In
addition a Data Theft Hotline, 888-729-3301 will be operating 24 hours a day, 7 days
a week to answer questions from affected individuals.

UC Berkeley computer administrators determined on April 21 that electronic databases
in UHS had been breached and data stolen by overseas criminals. The databases
stored personally identifiable information used for billing such as Social Security
numbers, and non-treatment medical information such as immunization history, UHS
medical record numbers, dates of visits or names of providers seen, or for
participants in the Education Abroad Program, certain information from the
self-reported health history.

Please be assured that UHS electronic medical records, which include details of
patients diagnoses~, treatments and therapies, are stored in a separate system and
were not affected in this incident.

To ensure that we fully understand the nature of the security breach and to
determine the steps that we can take to minimize the risk of a reoccurrence, the
university has hired an outside auditor, Price Waterhouse Coopers, to support our
ongoing investigation of the incident. The campus is committed to implementing
recommendations that address the root causes of this security breach.

Steve Lustig
Associate Vice Chancellor
Health and Human Services

Shelton Waggener
Associate Vice Chancellor & CIO
Information Services & Technology

Does this include us transfers?