KFVS12 News & Weather Cape Girardeau, Carbondale, Poplar BluffFormer SEMO Employee Found with Data Files of Personal Information of Students

Former SEMO Employee Found with Data Files of Personal Information of Students

Former SEMO Employee Found with Data Files of Personal Information of Students
By: Wes Wallace

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo.- Hundreds of students received an identity theft warning following a security breach at Southeast Missouri State University.

According to the school, a grand jury in Georgia indicted a former worker on three felony counts.

Dr. Dennis Holt with Southeast, tells Heartland News the man worked for Residence Life, and he left Southeast in June of last year.  The leak was discovered back in April.

Apparently someone was trying to log on without authorization, so investigators tracked the IP addresss to the man's new location in Georgia, where they searched his home and car.

Dr. Holt thinks the 800 or so students were random targets.

"It isn't as though he picked a numerical portion of social security numbers or an alphabetic range, there's no logic to it,"  said Holt.

Holt says the security breach happened before the university upgraded it's computer security system last year, and that the same type of theft won't happen again.

Students were notified of the breach students via a letter on June 19.

Students receiving the letters were asked to place a fraud alert on their consumer credit file and contact credit bureaus to place a security freeze on their accounts.

Find out how to protect yourself from identity theft.

Southeast has an identity alert page on their website to help students.  Students with more questions are asked to call (573) 986-6800 or e-mail identityalert@semo.edu.