WSU announced that information of some students, prospective students and staff may have been stolen from a third-party vendor.
The data breach is related to MOVEit Transfer a file-sharing application that WSU does not use, however, third-party applications such as National Student Clearinghouse, the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association and United Healthcare informed WSU that information from current and prospective WSU students and employees may have been exposed, WSU said.
When a company experiences a security breach they extend credit monitoring which will automatically keep an eye on whether or not people are trying to use personally identifiable information, Phil Weiler, Marketing and Communications vice president said.
“So that’s great, but that, you know, people’s information may have been breached already and so we wanted to give people the option of some mobilizing information so they knew what to do,” Weiler said.
This information includes closely monitoring your credit reports, placing fraud alerts on your accounts, freeze credit at each of the three major credit reporting agencies, if someone believes you are the victim of identity theft, file a police report and notify the Federal Trade Commission and block electronic access to Social Security information, WSU said.
However, WSU is not directly impacted, Weiler said.
“Unfortunately, there are breaches that happen with increasing regularity and so I think it’s always a good idea for people to be thoughtful and cautious about their personal information,” Weiler said.” If there’s some reason to believe it might have been impacted, as I said, the Federal Trade Commissions has some really good, relatively easy steps that people can take to just to make sure that their information is not being compromised.”
