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The Maui News
The University of Hawaii Maui College is notifying about 10,500 individuals who may have been impacted in a "data incident" in mid-February.
In a news release Thursday, UH-MC said that in mid-February, it learned that an unauthorized third party may have gained access to the university's computer network. UH Information Technology Services officials took immediate action as soon as the incident was discovered, the college said.
Experts worked to investigate and determine the nature and scope of the incident, which was also reported to law enforcement. The intrusion was isolated to the UH-Maui College network, which had been protected by a firewall and other safeguards before the event, the news release said. The event did not impact other networks in the UH system.
Through the investigation, the university identified potentially impacted files and conducted an extensive review to identify any individuals who may need to be notified. UH-Maui College also emailed current employees and staff alerting them to the incident and instructing them to change their passwords.
Letters being sent out to affected individuals will include an offer of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services through Experian.
"UH and UH Maui College take the responsibility to protect the data entrusted to the university seriously," said Garret Yoshimi, the UH vice president for information technology and chief information officer. "We are fully committed to protecting students' and employees' personal information and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or concern this may have caused."
Additional steps affected people may take include:
• Freezing their credit file.
• Placing fraud alerts on their account or credit file.
• Reviewing account statements and reporting fraud.
• Changing passwords and security verification questions and answers.
• Ordering free annual credit reports at www.annualcreditreport.com or by calling (877) 322-8228.
Current and former UH-Maui College students and employees who believe they may have been affected can also call (888) 493-2172 between the hours of 3 a.m. to 3 p.m. Hawaii time Monday through Friday, excluding major U.S. holidays.