Arkansas State University-Beebe issued a precautionary notice of a potential data breach regarding personally identifiable information of students and employees at its campuses located in Beebe, Heber Springs, Searcy and the Little Rock Air Force Base. The infected server did not contain credit card information for any current or former student or employee.
On October 21, ASU-Beebe was informed by a third party of a service running on one of its servers that could pose a potential breach to the system. Servers were immediately taken offline upon receiving the report. The servers in question only contained scanned documents saved in a proprietary format and did not include an electronic database.
“We are currently making all efforts to determine if a security breach has occurred either within ASU-Beebe or with other parties. While we are unable to confirm a breach at this time, we take the protection of the personally identifiable information of our campus constituents very seriously and will conduct a full and thorough investigation into this issue.” Chief Information Technology Officer Chris Lee said.
While this matter continues to be investigated, ASU-Beebe recommends that all employees and students carefully monitor all financial and credit accounts, be vigilant about observing and reporting any activity which may be out of the ordinary, and immediately report any suspicious activity both to the account’s servicer and to ASU-Beebe. More specifically, the information that was potentially accessed could be used to apply for a new account, so employees and students should also watch for fraudulent credit card applications.
“Please know that we are aggressively investigating this matter and that we will continue to provide updates as new informationcomes to light,” Lee said.
Any fraudulent activity should be reported by emailing [email protected] or by calling (501) 882-8802.
SOURCE: ASU-Beebe, October 27