Remember when Yale accidentally released 43,000 Social Security numbers to the general Googling public? Yeah, that was pretty stupid.

The University is still working to discern exactly how costly the data breach will be — identity-theft insurance can’t be cheap, you know? — but administrators say it’s unlikely the snafu was exploited by those nefarious Google dorkers you’ve been hearing so much about. Of course, they don’t really have any way of knowing, since Google remains mum on the subject. Regardless, Yale wants to assure you that hackers probably didn’t type a Yalie’s name into Google and come away with precious personal information.

But hold on — how exactly was the mistake discovered in the first place? Well, haha, funny story: A Yalie just typed his name into Google, and out popped his precious personal information. *Cue facepalm*

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Dear Yale students,

Remember that time when you first matriculated? And Yale was all like, “Hey guys, no big deal, but we’re going to need all of your personal information. Yeah, that Social Security number? Fork it over. Don’t worry, though. We’re world-class academics. We know not to do anything stupid with it, like make it available on Google, or whatever.”

Yeah, well, turns out Yale was wrong.

The university announced on Friday that around 43,000 Social Security numbers — belonging to current and former students, faculty, staff and alumni – were released into the Google ether at some juncture in the past, apparently by force of sheer incompetence innocent mistake. The issue was first noticed this June, and servers with at-risk files were immediately disconnected from the interwebz.

The leak was supposedly plugged with minimal damage, though no one is really sure whether or not the data was accessed. Yale, in the mean time, is offering complimentary credit monitoring and identity theft insurance to all those affected. Which is surely a huuuuuge relief to everyone involved.  Read the rest of this entry »