Education data breach puts 21,000 student loan borrowers at risk

[The Straight Story]

Education data breach puts 21,000 student loan borrowers at risk

By Daniel Pulliam
[e-mail]

Student loan holders logging on to an Education Department Web site between Sunday night and Tuesday morning exposed their personal identities to others as a result of a glitch in a contractor's efforts to service the site.

As first reported in the Boston Globe Wednesday, as many as 21,000 borrowers in the Federal Direct Student Loan Program could have had their personal data, including Social Security numbers, birthdates and addresses, compromised in yet another government agency data breach.

This incident follows a string of publicized breaches governmentwide, affecting information systems in more than a dozen federal agencies.

Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services Inc. was performing a software upgrade on the Federal Student Aid Web site when the software glitch occurred, an Education Department spokeswoman said. From around 9 p.m. Sunday until 10:15 a.m. Tuesday, users performing a certain task on the Web site would see the personal information of the last person who tried to complete the same task, officials said.

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