Personal details belonging to 20,000 University of Tasmania students were available publicly from late February to August 11.
Personal details belonging to 20,000 University of Tasmania students were available publicly from late February to August 11.
Personal information of almost 20,000 students of the University of Tasmania was mistakenly made public due to security settings misconfigured.
Students affected were informed about the breach, which made their details available for about five months to anyone with UTAS email address.
UTAS says analysis of the files has disclosed a “number of users” had access to the information with emails from the university.
The data, which contains personally identifiable information, is used to inform how the university assists students in their studies, UTAS says.
“Security settings on shared files were unintentionally configured incorrectly, which made the information visible and accessible to unauthorised users, ” reported the university.
The university became alert of the breach on August 11 and has brought independent experts to support.
“I sincerely apologise to all students who have been affected by this incident, ” said Rufus Black, University of Tasmania Vice-Chancellor.
Bank account information was not a part of the data breach.
“We have undertaken a thorough review of how this information became accessible and took immediate steps to ensure it is secure.”
The breach was due to the security settings misconfigured - allowing people with UTAS email to access the information.
Information of the students was made public through Microsoft Office 365 platform SharePoint, which is used to store, share and access files.
Access privileges were poorly configured on an Office365 application, which exhibits content to users based on those privileges.
“There is no evidence this data breach was a result of malicious activity, ” UTAS said.
“The system has now been correctly configured.”
UTAS has put up a hotline for students to clear their queries.
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