WESH 2 News has new information about a data breach at the University of Central Florida.
Approximately more than 200 students have reported being hacked. Their credit and debit cards have been compromised and investigators figured out how it happened.
Investigators said the massive UCF data breach was caused by malware.
Students are not the richest people around. It is very upsetting for students when banks called them up letting they know they have been charged. However, because of the fact that it was due to to a data breach, charges have been erased.
University officials said malware was found on the computer systems used to process sales at Asian Chao, Huey Magoo’s and the Corner Cafe inside the student union. All are operated by the same company.
“Specifically, we’re not sure how it happened,” said Tony Aguad, general manager of Huey Magoo’s.
Temporarily, they have resorted to cash transactions until they have cleaned off the infected computers and POS terminals.
As per Huey Magoo’s manager, employees are now taking debit cards again after temporarily having switched to cash transactions only.
Stronger firewall, software and malware protection is now in place to avoid having the same issue.
Malware attacks have always aimed and targeted businesses and is more common than you think. However, this is a rare incident that had targeted an area where the demographics affect students.
As per Tom Jelneck, a computer expert; “It could be something as simple and innocent as someone clicking an email and it downloading something into the computer. Runs in the background. Nobody knows the difference”.
The latest incident came several months after more than 63,000 Social Security numbers belonging to current and former students were hacked.
Officials do not believe the two incidents are connected.
UCF police and the Secret Service investigated the breach.
Anyone who feels they have been a victim is urged to contact their credit card company immediately.
