800,000 UCLA alumni identities, including their social security numbers, were compromised a few weeks ago by a hacker who was specifically targetting people’s identity information. From what I can tell, a lot (if not all) of the people that were on this list were contributors/donaters to UCLA’s alumni association. Note that a similar hack was successful at USC which affected 200,000 identities, i.e. this is not an isolated incident.
This is a threat & intrusion on people’s personal privacy that rivals very few other crimes. I hope they find this guy and prosecute him to the maximum extent allowable by law. Identity thieves are some of the lowest forms of life on the planet.
The full news story is here:
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=7571Information about "what to do" is available here:
http://www.identityalert.ucla.edu
I read that people can call (877) 533-8082 to find out if they were on the list of compromised identities and that those that find they are on the list can call 888-397-3742 at Experian (or visit the web site at http://www.experian.com/fraud) to place a Fraud Alert on their credit report, which will be replicated/shared with Equifax & Transunion, the other two credit agencies.
kurtsh
Kurt's Thoughts 