TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Nearly 50,000 college students in Florida had personal information that was compromised because of an unsecured website at Florida State University. That information was left unsecure for 14 days.
A breach in a state database exposed personal information from tens of thousands of Florida's college students.
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"It kind of makes you wonder whether or not all of our students are protected," said FSU senior Amanda Chown.
The information, which includes Social Security numbers and home addresses, was exposed in late May. The breach occurred after Florida State University's Center for Interactive Media moved the student information to a new server. After the move, measures to restrict who was allowed to view the site weren't put in place.
"When FSU was moving from one server to the other, the security guys there didn't shut the door on the second go around," said Joe Follock, of the Department of Education.
FSU was hired by the state DOE to secure the information.
"We take the protection of information very seriously," said Liz Maryanski, FSU vice president for university relations. "We've worked very closely with DOE."
The students affected are preparing to become teachers.
About 47,000 students like those at Florida State's College of Education had their personal information unsecure for two weeks.
"We have no indication at this point that any of the data has been misused," said Maryanski.
Over the two week time span, the unsecured information was viewed 23 times through Google. It's unknown how many had unauthorized access.
"We want to be extra cautious and make sure that people have confidence in this," said Follick. "We'll be notifying everyone personally."
So far there is no indication the information has been used illegally.