Hack at UT Austin results in 37,000 SSNs exposed. Get this:

“He says the young man didn’t using any hacking tools and simply got the information off an open system. Phillips says he never planned to hurt anyone.”

Luckily, he meant to do no harm. I say we just let him go. Not.

Update from: http://business.bostonherald.com/technologyNews/view.bg?articleid=52585
- he is an ex-student.
- break-ins occurred Feb/Mar 2003
- UT Austin estimates damage at $167,000

Double Update: This is not a new break-in. It is actually notice of indictment for this incident which was first reported on 3/7/03. At that time, they said it was 55,200 student records.

Another report, even juicier says “The indictment revealed that UT computer officials had previous run-ins with Phillips. Three times in 2002, Phillips “attempted to breach the security of hundreds of outside computer systems and was detected by” university officials, the indictment said.” Ah, ha – intent.

Other tidbits – used a “blunt force” technique (hey, I didn’t say it, another article did) to automatically attempt to login with SSNs, which appear to be the login ID ??? No excuse for Phillips, but this seems pretty strange.