The University of Maryland (UMD) said it was the victim of a recent cyberattack, according to their statement released Wednesday.
In the letter, UMD President Wallace D. Loh said he was informed of the breach yesterday evening by Brian Voss, the Vice President of Information Technology at the university.
“A specific database of records maintained by our IT Division was breached yesterday. That database contained 309,079 records of faculty, staff, students and affiliated personnel,” Dr. Loh said. “The records included name, Social Security number, date of birth, and University identification number.”
University officials haven’t released any information on how hackers gained access to the University database.The university is currently investigating the data breach with the help of federal law enforcement agencies and forensic experts.
“I am truly sorry,” said Dr. Loh. “Computer and data security are a very high priority of our University.”For those affected by the attack, UMD is offering one year of free credit monitoring service, the same offer given to victims of the recent Target and Neiman Marcus cyberattacks.
_________________________________________________________________ Joshua Cannell is a Malware Intelligence Analyst at Malwarebytes where he performs research and malware analysis. Twitter: @joshcannell
