The University of Minnesota notified law enforcement as well as state and federal regulatory agencies about a potentially massive data breach a month ago, U officials confirmed Tuesday.
In a written statement in response to Star Tribune questions, spokesman Jake Ricker said that on July 21, the U "became aware that an unauthorized party claimed to possess sensitive data allegedly taken from the University's systems."
The university began an investigation and hired "outside global forensics professionals to help determine the validity of the party's claims, and to ensure the security of the University's systems."
The U didn't immediately provide information about how it was alerted to the breach or the the scope.
Ricker did not confirm or deny claims in a report from the Cyber Express, a news site, a month ago about unauthorized access by a hacker to some 7 million Social Security numbers at the university dating to 1989. The report said the hacker accessed the university's data warehouse to analyze the effects of affirmative action in the wake of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prohibits the consideration of race in college admissions
Ricker said the university has been in regular contact with law enforcement and will continue to cooperate in any active investigation. The "preliminary assessment" is that the accessed data is from 2021 and earlier.
Since late July, the university has taken steps bolster its overall system security with multi-factor authentication and increased monitoring, Ricker said.
"The University has also run additional scans that did not reveal ongoing suspicious activity related to the incident," he wrote.
If sensitive data was accessed, the U pledged to notify those affected and help protect against misuse of their information as required by law, Ricker said. As required by law, he said the university has also notified state and federal regulatory agencies.
Ricker said the "safety and privacy of all members of the University community are among the University's top priorities. The University investigates these situations immediately and fully, and will keep the community informed as additional, relevant information becomes available."
