Security breach
Possible identity theft hits campus; TCU prepared
By Emily Baker
Staff Reporter

The handful of TCU students who fell victim to possible identity theft within the last two weeks and the information of more than 59,000 individuals at the University of Texas recently stolen by a hacker further prove that identity theft is an up-and-coming crime, TCU Police officials say.

Half a dozen TCU students received calls from someone claiming to be with the university or Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and asking to verify the individual’s Social Security number, date of birth and other personal information, TCU Police Detective Kelly Ham said. The calls were received by students the week of and the week prior to Spring Break, Ham said.

“I suspect the callers were identity thieves out to get information, to get credit cards and other financial gain,” Ham said.

The calls were all blocked and untraceable, Ham said. Because a crime has not been committed until the information is used by the identity thief, there is not much the police can do to investigate, Ham said.

“I’ve told these students to keep and eye on their information to see if any illegal activity is happening,” Ham said.

Ham said he did not know how the callers got the students’ phone numbers and said there is not a way of knowing whether the-easily accessed online directory is to blame.

Though identity thieves could potentially use information students voluntarily put in the directories, the TCU computer network is safe from hackers but not 100 percent fool-proof, Assistant Provost of Information Services David Edmondson said.

“I can’t tell you that someone is not going to hack into the system,” Edmondson said. “The only way to handle a threat is through minimizing the possibility of a threat and by being proactive rather than reactive.”

Edmondson said the university spends close to $250,000 a year on software and hardware designed to protect the network.

“If people in the world were honest, I could cut the budget by that much,” Edmondson said. “But we take any threat to security seriously.”

The UT system was hacked into because it lacked sufficient preventative measures, Edmondson said. The hacker might not have been successful if the UT network contained the security measures taken at TCU, Edmondson said.

The TCU network is protected by a firewall that logs activities of users trying to hack in the system and shuts out any invasive action, Edmondson said. Another firewall is in place to protect against hacking into the database that contains personal information, Edmondson said.

Intrusion detection software is also on the network to block ill-meaning users, Edmondson said. Another security device is the anti-virus software on the network, Edmondson said. Students and faculty are required to change their user password every 90 days to further secure the network, he said.

Aside from that, Edmondson said, a key part of student safety is the fact that information is recorded by student ID number rather than by Social Security number. There are also physical barriers including locks and a card-swipe security system that protects the hardware, Edmondson said.

Regular check-ups are performed on the network, and a two-month evaluation of the network was recently completed, Edmondson said. Efforts have begun to patch areas that could be subject to attack, he said.

A few things can be done to minimize the risk for identity theft, such as keeping passwords secret and being sure to logoff after using campus computers, Edmondson said.

Ham said not to give out personal information to strangers, not to leave bills and other documents with private information in plain sight and not to carelessly discard documents with private information where someone could go through the trash and retrieve it.

Emily Baker