Any Social Security numbers in your alum database?
Make sure your security experts check it

Well, Social Security numbers are probably not the best unique id for your alums (or students). With identity theft horror stories in the news and computers never totally safe from hacker attacks, it’s definitely time for some changes in higher ed alum databases. At least, fo the sake of your good relations with your alums…

Even if they have been used for years by Universities and Colleges, Social Security numbers should be retired as database unique identifiers to avoid what has just happened to Boston College.

Boston College has sent warning letters to 120,000 of its alumni, after a computer containing their addresses and Social Security numbers was hacked by an unknown intruder, reported Hiawatha Bray in BC warns its alumni of possible ID theft after computer is hacked, an article published on March 17 in The Boston Globe.

According to The Boston Globe, the hacked computer was not run by the school, but by an outside contractor (BC didn’t release the name of the company) as part of a phone bank system used for fundraising activities.

You should probably find out if your advancement office relies on such services.

Thanks to security checks run by Boston College’s IT department on a regular basis, this breach of security was identified in a timely manner.

The investigation concluded that there was no evidence of identity theft. The school also concluded that the hack wasn’t an inside job. (…) But investigators couldn’t be absolutely sure that the intruder hadn’t also collected some personal information on alumni, such as their Social Security numbers. Dunn said that including Social Security data in the alumni files was a matter of custom. “Every university in the United States, for decades, used Social Security numbers as identifiers from alums,” he said. “As a result of the breach, we have taken immediate actions to purge all Social Security numbers for this particular computer, and from all alumni records.”

If your college or university alum association still uses Social Security numbers as unique id, now is a good time to check your IT security plan.

If you are a BC alum, you may want to check this special page set up to help you in what could become a difficult time.

MORE: The Boston Globe ran this follow-up story: Colleges on their guard against ID security threats