The University of Maine will spend $2.6 million over the next three years to beef up information security following a data breach last year that exposed personal information on 4585 students and alumni who had visited the university’s counseling center.
The University will spend the money to close information security gaps discovered after an audit of the university’s IT systems, according to Rebecca Wyke, the university’s vice chancellor for finance and administration. The audit of IT systems found four areas of high risk and three areas of medium risk, according to a report in the Bangor Daily News.
At the same time, the audit showed that 78% of the university data systems were “clean”, Wyke said.
In June, the university disclosed that hackers had accessed the counseling center’s servers, which contained personal information on 4585 students and alumni who visited the center between Aug. 8, 2002, and June 21, 2010. This information included birth dates and social security numbers.
The university informed affected individuals by letter and engaged Debix to monitor their credit activity. It also hired Protiviti to conduct an investigation of the data breach.
