Whoops! Files containing the social security numbers of 2,166 former Johns Hopkins graduate students mistakenly wound up on a server that could be accessed via the Internet. The university realized the snafu on March 19 and quickly took the files off the server.
University spokesman Dennis O’Shea told the Baltimore Sun that logs indicate the numbers were accessed “a few dozen times” while they were exposed, but he doesn’t believe hackers ever got to them.
The breach affected graduate students who attended the Homewood campus anytime between 2007 and 2009. All those people were notified by letter this week. For good measure, the university offered them “one year of free credit monitoring and identity protection.”
