From McClatchy Newspapers:
A hacker has infiltrated a computer server housing the personal data of 236,000 women enrolled in a UNC-Chapel Hill research study.
Among the information exposed: the Social Security numbers of 163,000 study participants.
Though the intrusion was detected in late July, computer forensics experts say it may have happened two years ago, said Matthew Mauro, chairman of the UNC-CH Department of Radiology.
And though UNC-CH officials and a private computer forensic expert have spent two months investigating, they still don’t know who did the hacking, where the attack originated, or even whether data was downloaded.
”There’s no direct evidence that any information has been removed,” Mauro said. “But we can’t say for sure.”
The compromised server had all required security measures, Mauro said. It was one of two servers housing data on more than 662,000 women. The data are part of the Carolina Mammography Registry, a 14-year-old project that compiles and analyzes mammography results submitted by radiologists across the state.
Read more in News-Record.com.