The UTD Mercury

Personal information may have been exposed for 9,100 students and faculty affiliated with UTD from 2000-2003 due to a computer network intruder, according to Information Resources officials.

Names, addresses, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers may have been exposed, according to an IR announcement July 31 and e-mails sent to students and faculty.

Notifications are being mailed and emailed to those who may be affected, said Susan Rogers, vice president for communications.

The potential disclosure was discovered July 12 by IR staff. Rogers said she couldn't discuss the date of the intrusion since it is part of an ongoing investigation.

In a July 31 e-mail to students and faculty, Jim Gary, vice president and chief information officer of IR, said there was no reason to believe the information had been disclosed.

Several pages of information addressing the breach can be viewed at www.utdallas.edu/infosecurity, where potentially affected students and faculty were advised to place a fraud alert on their credit reports and directed to a UT Dallas Web site with more information.

According to that site, the information was from a back up saved on a computer "identified as having been put at risk." The information predates the current system, implemented 2005, of creating an identification number to replace Social Security numbers.

The breach also necessitated a July 22 campus-wide NetID password reset. All passwords changed before July 21 expired on July 28 at midnight, according to the campus-wide email from IR.

"In my 10 years here, I believe this is the third time I've had to reset my password for a reason other than normal password expiration," Gary said. "This round has been further agitated by our NetID web site behaving poorly, sending some users into a continuous loop of web pages when they try to change their NetID."

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