Educational Security Incidents (ESI)

Quick Facts

• Date: 9/2/2008
• Institution: University of Illinois
• Type of Incident: Impersonation
• Number Affected: 1
• Source: ESI
• Abstract Source: News Gazette
• Update1 Source: Daily Illini

Abstract
University of Illinois officials are working to track down who sent a fraudulent email message purportedly from Chancellor Richard Herman. The e-mail message, sent from the chancellor AT uillinois.edu e-mail account, denounces fraternities and sororities calling recruiting activities "aggressive" and claiming that such organizations "perpetuate social inequality, especially with respect to the opposite gender, and promote a lack of diversity." According to officials within the Office of the Chancellor, which controls the chancellor AT uillinois.edu, the e-mail was sent from the account but that the e-mail was not sent by the chancellor. The Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services (CITES) staff is looking into how this e-mail was sent and is attempting to determine how many people received the fraudulent e-mail. According to Robin Kaler, the UI's associate chancellor for public affairs, the university plans to take disciplinary action against the individual responsible for sending the e-mail.

Update1
According to Mike Corn, director of security and privacy for CITES, the hoax email was not the result of a security breach. While the email appeared to be sent to "everyone@uillinois.edu", that was not the case. According to Corn, this part of the email was just text and the email was just another form of "phishing", designed to get grab everyone's attention.

Quick Facts

• Date: 8/27/2007
• Institution: University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
• Type of Incident: Unauthorized Disclosure
• Number Affected: 5,247
• Source: Pogo Was Right
• Abstract Source: The News-Gazette

Abstract
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign officials are apologizing to students after an e-mail to 700 College of Engineering students about a new Lego Robotics class was found to contain the personal information of 5,247 students. The e-mail contained a spreadsheet that a staff member used to gather e-mail address. Along with e-mail address, the spreadsheet contained other personal information including name, major, gender, race and ethnicity, class, date admitted, spring 2007 grade point average, and cumulative GPA as well as local address and phone number. The mistake was identified almost immediately after the 7:51am was sent out. By 10:08am the University issued another e-mail to the student that received the spreadsheet asking them to delete the file and the original e-mail message. UIUC officials are meeting to discuss how to best notify the affected students.