More Colleges Warn Students About Identity Theft Following SunGard Security Breach

Last week The Chronicle reported that at least 18 colleges were hurriedly trying to inform tens of thousands of students that their identities were at risk of being stolen after the software vendor SunGard announced that a thief took off with a laptop owned by one of its consultants.

Since then, at least three more colleges have revealed that confidential data about their students was on the laptop, too. The institutions are: Meridian Community College, in Meridian, Miss.; Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, Va.; and St. John Fisher College, in Rochester, N.Y. Meridian advised 4,454 former students to take steps to protect their credit. St John Fisher did the same for nearly 2,000 current and former students. Virginia Tech has not disclosed how many people have been affected by the security breach.