McHenry County College Issues Statement on internet Security Breach, Believes Misuse “Unlikely”

A press release from McHenry County College:

McHenry County College Notifies Individuals of Disclosure of Personal Information

McHenry County College

McHenry County College

[August 13, 2013.Crystal Lake, IL] McHenry County College (MCC) has notified certain employees and students that their personal information was unintentionally shared with three other Illinois community colleges by its technology vendor, Ellucian.

The College was made aware of the incident the week of July 22, 2013 by Ellucian, which had inadvertently shared MCC employee and student data, including

  • name
  • mailing address
  • social security number and
  • some student IDs

through a reporting template that the company had created for MCC and is also using for the other community colleges.

Upon learning of this situation, MCC immediately put a communication plan in place to notify the individuals affected, which included a personal letter mailed to each person and the creation of a dedicated hotline for individuals to call with questions/concerns.

The College also provided those individuals contact information for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and consumer reporting agencies, in the event that anyone should want to take further measures to guard against potential misuse of personal information.

MCC was advised that the only individuals at the other colleges who may have had access to this personal information are IT and research personnel who are authorized to manage confidential data. Ellucian has coordinated action with the other three community colleges so that all MCC data has been permanently deleted from the other institutions’ electronic systems.

The College believes that it is unlikely that this release of personal information resulted in any misuse.

According to MCC Chief Information Officer, Al Butler, “Maintaining the security and confidentiality of personal information is a top priority at MCC. Upon learning of this incident, the College required Ellucian to take immediate action to ensure that any effect from the release of personal information was mitigated.”

MCC has the appropriate measures in place to continue the protection of confidential data.

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This story was broken by McHenry County Blog on Friday and Saturday:


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