Jackson State U. Student Dumps Personal Data to Expose School's IT Woes

A Jacksonville State University scholar allegedly hacked into his school's computer system and dumped personal information of other admitted students and faculty online.

According to the website where the data was leaked, the suspected hacker lives in Russia, the VPS is in Bulgaria, and the domain is in Switzerland.

The website states it was made to bring awareness to JSU's information security problems.

The suspect's identity isn't being released because the individual is a juvenile.

One day after the school learned of the compromise, a university spokeswoman said the incident was not an outside hacking, but an internal breach of a "peripheral system with limited information."

Students' and faculty members' phone numbers, birth dates, hometowns and their ID photos were published. Those impacted by this security violation include students who have been accepted for admission.

The suspected hacker has updated the site to mask students' street addresses, but their city and state is still listed.

The university is working with state and federal law enforcement officials to have the website removed and to seek prosecution of the offenders.