Confidential school records made available online

Recent media reports state that more than 100,000 student records were accidentally made available online.  The security blunder by The Princeton Review, an educational support services provider, is believed to have happened as a result of the company changing internet providers earlier this year, exposing the confidential data for seven weeks.

The Princeton Review’s publicly accessible and searchable website exposed the dates of birth and names of 74,000 students in Virginia.  In addition, another file revealed the dates of birth, test scores and ethnicity of 34,000 students in Florida, after the county hired The Princeton Review to measure academic progress.

The data breach was discovered and exposed by a competitor of The Princeton Review as it conducted competitive intelligence.

Source: Sophos.