Columbia University Data Breach Affects 870,000 People

Columbia University revealed that hackers breached its network on May 16, stealing personal data from nearly 870,000 current and former students, applicants, and employees. The stolen information includes names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, contact details, academic records, and financial aid information.

The university discovered the breach after experiencing a technical outage on June 24. Working with cybersecurity experts, they found that an unauthorized actor had accessed their systems and stolen 460GB of data.

While there's no evidence the stolen data has been misused yet, Columbia isn't ruling out future misuse. The university is offering two years of free credit monitoring through Kroll and urging affected individuals to monitor their accounts for suspicious activity.

Source: Dark Reading