By NICK BUDD
Hays Post

Approximately 138 former Fort Hays State University students had some personal information — including their Social Security numbers — exposed to the Internet.

According to FHSU spokesman Kent Steward, a couple of months ago, a faculty member accidentally breached the data while they were transferring data between computers. Last week, a nonprofit watchdog group located in Washington found the information during a “phishing expedition” on Google and contacted the university, which took steps to remove the information, a process Steward said took just “a couple of minutes.”

Once the university was informed, officials notified students affected and apologized. They also directed the individuals to agencies that assist with credit ratings to ensure that they weren’t a victim of fraud.

According to Steward, since the incident happened, the university has added another layer of fraud protection to its systems in order to ensure a similar breach doesn’t happen again.

“We have a lot of different protocols in place, and we’re constantly trying to make sure that people understand how to avoid security breaches like this, but it is an ongoing process,” Steward said.

During talks with the watchdog group, Steward said the volunteer with the group informed him that several other universities that were contacted about data breaches did not call the watchdog group back and, in some cases, they “didn’t do anything.”