Little found by police on June data breach

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For now, it seems the data breach that occurred last spring when two of the University of Maine’s computer servers were infiltrated by hackers will have few repercussions on the more than 4,000 students affected.

Officer Bill Mitchell, a computer forensics specialist who is leading the investigation for the University of Maine Police Department, said he believes hackers were unable to view sensitive data related to approximately 4,585 students who visited the university’s counseling center from August 2002 through June 2010.

Mitchell said in a telephone interview Monday that because the investigation is still open he could not go into details about any new evidence. He did say, however, there is no cause for alarm as no major findings have emerged since the inquiry began.

“Right now, I’m going through a boatload of drives and data and I’m finding nothing new from when we started the investigation shortly after the breach of the servers,” he said.

Early in the investigation, which began in June 2010, it was found that a server containing information archived from 2002 to 2005 was compromised in March 2010. Once hackers gained access to that machine, they were able to infiltrate a second server, which carried an active version of the 2002 to 2010 counseling center database.

Affected students and university officials were outraged and alarmed that the server’s security measures failed to protect the names, social security numbers and clinical information of the individuals involved.

“This is an insidious affront to the rightful privacy expectations of our students,” Dean of Students Robert Dana was quoted as saying in a June 29, 2010 article in The Maine Campus (“UM Counseling Center servers hacked”).

“The criminals who make it their business to exploit our society’s need and ability to store information are beneath contempt. Because of this we are engaging all possible resources to find the source of these attacks,” he said.

In the time since, even though he couldn’t discuss all facets of the investigation, Mitchell said it has been almost impossible to find those who were responsible for the attacks. As a result, according to Mitchell, the university is focusing instead on making its computer security systems stronger. Mitchell said the Information Technology department has done a great job of improving the system even as the investigation continues.

Additionally, no attempts to steal the identities of those students whose files were breached have been reported by the company hired to monitor the information.

Mitchell expects to finish reviewing all the hardware implicated in the breach by this coming summer — a measure he said would give UMaine and those affected by the leak the peace of mind they deserve.

“By conducting this investigation and using software that helps us to find out exactly what went on and how it went on, we’ll be able to have a better understanding of how the breach occurred and, in this way, how to prevent it in the future,” he said.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 16th, 2011, 11:15 pm. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.