Penn State Live recently reported that up to 10,868 Social Security numbers were copied from historical data on computers at the Behrend campus after some of its legacy computers were infected with a virus. The Behrend site has the full story.

Even in cases such as this in which it cannot be determined with certainty that any data was pulled from a computer by infectious software, the University’s policy is to take a cautionary stance and notify individuals who may have been affected. This response is in line with the Pennsylvania Breach of Personal Information Notification Act, which went into effect in 2006 and mandates that the University notify anyone whose personally identifiable information is potentially disclosed when a computer is lost or compromised.

Penn State is sending letters today to those who may have had their Social Security numbers compromised.

What’s weird is that the breach was discovered on March 23, but only reported on April 10. Do any of you techies out there know if there is a good reason for the hold up?

[Picture via Flickr’s Ted Rheingold]