Dining Services faces security debacle

It's been a rough end of the term for Ohio State Dining Services. The director of Dining Services, Thomas Stevenson, has resigned from his position, and 350 student employees had their social security numbers accidentally leaked in an e-mail.

"There is absolutely no connection [between Stevenson's resignation and the leaked social security numbers]. We considered that people might draw that conclusion, but it's purely coincidence," said Ruth Gerstner from Student Life.

Dining Services administrators realized the social security mishap shortly after Stevenson's resignation.

"There is nobody hacking in, it was a mistake, and it was caught immediately," Gerstner said.

The hiring coordinator for Dining Services, and OSU student, received an e-mail with an attachment that included students' names and social security numbers. He accidentally sent the attachment in an e-mail reminding student employees to sign their waivers for the Ohio Employees Retirement System, Gerstner said.

"In most cases, the students had never opened the attachment," Gerstner said.

After realizing the mistake, the hiring coordinator called the Office of Information Technology, which stopped the e-mails before all of them were sent.

"The university policy is then to alert everyone and offer them protection," Gerstner said.

At-risk students are being offered "12 months of identity protection under the Debix identity protection network," according to the notification letter sent to the 350 student employees. "Debix will identify new attempts to obtain credit in [each student's] name, and will call [the student] when a creditor is trying to open a new account." Students will also receive $25,000 identity theft insurance through the program.

"The cost [of Debix} is $11 per person who chooses to register for the Debix service," Gerstner said in an e-mail. "We anticipate 70 to 75 students will choose to enroll, and it will cost less than $1,000."

The mistake was not the fault of the hiring coordinator alone, but of an entire chain of administrators, Gerstner said. The coordinator "is only one of many people in this situation."

The Lantern made contact with the hiring coordinator and a student whose identity is at risk, but both declined to comment.