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On Sunday, March 2 at 7:20 p.m., computer systems personnel at UT Austin discovered a computer malfunction. The affected computer system was immediately shut down, and detailed analysis was begun.

What happened?

The malfunction was assessed to be the result of a deliberate attack from the Internet. Subsequent analysis revealed that a security weakness in an administrative data reporting system was exploited by writing a program to input millions of Social Security numbers. Those SSNs that matched selected individuals in a UT database were captured, together with e-mail address, title, department name, department address, department phone number, and names/dates of employee training programs attended. It is important to note that no student grade or academic records, or personal health or insurance information was disclosed.

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How many individual records were exposed?

Approximately 55,200 individuals had some of the above data exposed. This group includes current and former students, current and former faculty and staff, and job applicants.

Data Theft and Identity Protection