Harvard Alerts 10,000 Applicants Of Data Breach

March 13, 2008 10:04 a.m. EST

Cambridge, MA (AHN) - Harvard University is notifying some 10,000 students who had applied to the school that their Social Security numbers and other personal data may have been accessed by hackers.

Although detected last month, Harvard officials Thursday began alerting applications to the university's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. More than 6,000 applicant Social Security numbers and 500 school IDs were exposed, according to the campus newspaper, The Harvard Crimson.

Harvard officials said the alert was sounded after an investigation into the January incident was found to be wider than initially thought.

Some of the data was made available on "The Pirate Bay," a popular peer-to-peer file-sharing site.

Along with notifying individuals, the Ivy League school is offering free identity theft protection, as well as credit monitoring