You might want to think twice about checking your bank account, private email or even your social networking account on a college computer.A few days after the Thanksgiving holiday, it was discovered that at least 7 different viruses were stealing personal information from possibly tens of thousands of students, faculty and staff at City College of San Francisco.
Worse yet, it appears that the army of malware has been trolling the college’s network every night around 10p.m. and uploading sensitive data to remote servers based in Russia, China, and eight other countries since 1999.
Computers across the college district’s administrative, instructional and wireless networks have been infected and there’s a chance that anyone that’s used a USB drive to take their work home could have transferred the virus to their personal PC.
School officials are investigating the extent of the infection and data siphoning, but apparently servers holding medical information were found to be virus-free. Another 17 computers thought to be at-risk are currently being analyzed.
Thankfully, no identity theft cases have been linked to the breach. However, that may change depending on the investigation and school officials are considering bringing in the FBI to help.
[via SFGate]
Photo Credit: markomni
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