University of Hawaii Data Breach Class Action

University of Hawaii Data Breach Class Action

By Kimberly Mirando

The University of Hawaii has been hit with a class action lawsuit for allegedly allowing hackers repeated access to the personal information of more than 100,000 students and alumni over the past several years.

The University of Hawaii class action lawsuit takes aim at four security breaches its students and alumni suffered over a period of two years:

* In October 2010, the University of Hawaii learned that over 40,000 names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and other extremely detailed personal information for university alumni was posted on an insecure website for almost a year by a retired faculty member who had been conducting research. 

* In June 2010, a hacker penetrated an unsecured server with names, Social Security numbers, and credit card numbers for nearly 54,000 UH students, guests and alumni. 

* In February 2010, 35 names and credit card numbers were made available on a public computer at the Pacific Aviation Training Center at Honolulu Community College. 

* In April 2009, the UH system breached and another 15,487 names and Social Security numbers of students who applied for financial aid at Kapiolani Community College, along with their parents’ personal information, when a server became infected with malware.

During each security breach, UH informed breach victims that they were “at risk” for identity theft and urged them to take mitigation against actions such as enrolling in credit monitoring. The University of Hawaii data breach class action lawsuit is seeking monetary damages to compensate Class Members for expenses associated with the data breaches, including, but not limited to, enrollment in credit report monitoring programs and identity theft insurance. 

The UH class action lawsuit is brought on behalf of all persons whose confidential information was released or made available by the University of Hawaii during the security breaches of April 2009, February 2010, June 2010, and October 2010. 

A copy of the University of Hawaii Security Breach Class Action Lawsuit can be read here. 

The case is Philippe Gross, et al. v. University of Hawaii, Case No 11-1-1217-06, Circuit Court of the First Circuit, State of Hawaii.