Data Breach Strikes U North Dakota Alumni Association

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 10/10/08

The alumni association for the University of North Dakota has gone public with a data breach that occurred when a laptop belonging to a software vendor was stolen from a vehicle. The computer contained the names of 84,000 university alumni, donors, and others, according to coverage by the Grand Forks Herald.

The data had been provided to the vendor for "a specific matter of support," the association said in an announcement on its Web site. It added that the data, which included credit card and social security numbers, was encrypted on the machine.

The association was informed about the theft on September 26 by the vendor, which it declines to name. On October 7, the association mailed a letter to people in the database informing them of the loss and stating that it had no evidence that the information contained on the computer had been used in any way.

The association said it pressured the vendor to cover the expense of making an online credit monitoring service available to affected individuals.