thedrifter
08-01-07, 12:16 PM
Personal info of Marines accidentally posted by PSU researcher
By GENARO C. ARMAS
Associated Press Writer
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. --The names and Social Security numbers of roughly 8,400 Marines were inadvertently posted on the Web site of a Penn State University researcher.
A Marine conducting an Internet search of his Social Security number found the Web site June 18 and called Penn State, which immediately pulled the information, university spokeswoman Lisa Powers said Tuesday.
A check of computer logs showed that the Marine who notified Penn State was the only person who viewed the records, Powers said. No incidents of identity theft or fraud have been reported, said Maj. Tim Keefe, a spokesman at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Va.
Both Powers and Keefe called the posting of personal information an accident.
The corps, in an administrative message to Marines last week, said the data was provided to the school through a research contract and had been "compromised," improperly posted online and cached by the Internet search engine Google.
The disclosure was first reported by the Marine Corps Times.
The researcher, whose name has not been released, sought test scores from a rifle-firing range at the Recruit Depot in Parris Island, S.C., from Jan. 2004 to Dec. 2006. The information was part of 400 different data files provided to the researcher and posted on the Web on June 7, Powers said.
"He did that so he could collaborate with other researchers on the project, not knowing that personal identifiers had been in the data," Powers said.
Penn State didn't notify the Marine Corps until July 6, more than two weeks after first being told about the posting.
In between, the university's computer security workers were sifting through the files, trying to determine their contents, where they were posted, who posted them and whether there was a reportable breach, Powers said.
The university also wanted to ensure that the information was removed from Google's search cache. Powers said the school did not get an immediate response from the search engine about the process, which typically takes as many as five days.
"Part of the reason for being so thorough and methodical was to try to ensure that all of the information was discovered and secured," Powers said.
The school was also trying to get in touch with the researcher, who was out of town at the time of the discovery, she said.
As of Tuesday, about 15 people have called or e-mailed a Marine hotline center with questions about the disclosure, Keefe said, though Corps officials are still in the process of contacting those whose information was released.
The Marines' initially thought that the names and Social Security numbers of more than 10,500 troops were released.
But university researchers discovered that many of the names were duplicates and whittled down the actual number of disclosed records to 8,400, Powers said.
The researcher is still with Penn State and working on the same study, Powers said.
Ellie
By GENARO C. ARMAS
Associated Press Writer
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. --The names and Social Security numbers of roughly 8,400 Marines were inadvertently posted on the Web site of a Penn State University researcher.
A Marine conducting an Internet search of his Social Security number found the Web site June 18 and called Penn State, which immediately pulled the information, university spokeswoman Lisa Powers said Tuesday.
A check of computer logs showed that the Marine who notified Penn State was the only person who viewed the records, Powers said. No incidents of identity theft or fraud have been reported, said Maj. Tim Keefe, a spokesman at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Va.
Both Powers and Keefe called the posting of personal information an accident.
The corps, in an administrative message to Marines last week, said the data was provided to the school through a research contract and had been "compromised," improperly posted online and cached by the Internet search engine Google.
The disclosure was first reported by the Marine Corps Times.
The researcher, whose name has not been released, sought test scores from a rifle-firing range at the Recruit Depot in Parris Island, S.C., from Jan. 2004 to Dec. 2006. The information was part of 400 different data files provided to the researcher and posted on the Web on June 7, Powers said.
"He did that so he could collaborate with other researchers on the project, not knowing that personal identifiers had been in the data," Powers said.
Penn State didn't notify the Marine Corps until July 6, more than two weeks after first being told about the posting.
In between, the university's computer security workers were sifting through the files, trying to determine their contents, where they were posted, who posted them and whether there was a reportable breach, Powers said.
The university also wanted to ensure that the information was removed from Google's search cache. Powers said the school did not get an immediate response from the search engine about the process, which typically takes as many as five days.
"Part of the reason for being so thorough and methodical was to try to ensure that all of the information was discovered and secured," Powers said.
The school was also trying to get in touch with the researcher, who was out of town at the time of the discovery, she said.
As of Tuesday, about 15 people have called or e-mailed a Marine hotline center with questions about the disclosure, Keefe said, though Corps officials are still in the process of contacting those whose information was released.
The Marines' initially thought that the names and Social Security numbers of more than 10,500 troops were released.
But university researchers discovered that many of the names were duplicates and whittled down the actual number of disclosed records to 8,400, Powers said.
The researcher is still with Penn State and working on the same study, Powers said.
Ellie