Remember when universities used Social Security numbers as student IDs? Well, if you contact alumni, make sure you are no longer using their SSN as their IDs. The University of Wisconsin-Superior Alumni Association is notifying an unspecified number of their alumni after they discovered that using old student IDs was a current risk. From their counsel’s notification letter:
On February l, 2018, UW-Superior Alumni Association sent its alumni a Mississippi River Cruise brochure sponsored by the UW-Superior Alumni Association. In the process of preparing the mailing data, an ID number was sent to UW-Superior Alumni Association’s travel vendor and appeared above each individual’s name and address on the brochure. On February 5, 2018, UW-Superior Alumni Association was made aware that the ID number for its alumni who graduated during a certain time period may have been the same as the student ID number (social security number) used while in attendance at UW-Superior. As a result, some of the personal information belonging to New Hampshire residents who are UW-Superior alumni may have been exposed to others, including their first and last names, home addresses, and social security numbers .
And yes, the university’s incident response included removing all old SSN and having the travel vendor purge its files as well. Those affected were offered identity theft protection.