Education Dept. left Social Security numbers of thousands of borrowers exposed for months – The Washington Post
The Education Department left the Social Security numbers of tens of thousands of people seeking student debt relief unprotected and susceptible to a data breach for at least six months, according to people familiar with the matter.
Angela Morabito, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, acknowledged the error but called it “nonevent.” The data was “was on the department’s secure, internal server, and there is no indication anyone outside the department could have had access to it,” she said. “There is also no indication anyone inside the department handled this file improperly.”
But anyone at the federal agency, and some of its contractors, could have accessed the personally identifiable information through a shared folder before it was secured on Friday, putting thousands of people’s personal information at risk, according to internal documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The information came from applications for student debt relief submitted by borrowers who say they were defrauded by their colleges. A 1995 law, known as “borrower defense to repayment,” provides federal loan forgiveness to students whose colleges lied to get them to enroll.