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Ask HN: Trade School's Online Portal Hacked – Legal Recourse?
My girlfriend attends a trade school for veterinary technicians in the US.
She just called to tell me that their online portal has been compromised. Nobody can log in, and this system is linked to all other systems including financial and personal information.
Are there any statues that allow for legal recourse in this situation? One would hope there are stringent regulations in place for schools, much like medical data.
- blackflame7000 10y agoIn order to file a successful lawsuit you must show damages. Simply not being able to login does not rise to the level necessary to show harm.
- leesalminen 10y agoOf course. That bit was just the anecdotal evidence provided by a non-technical person to indicate the compromise was "bad". Administrators at the school have now informed students that personal (SSN #, address, phone, work history) and financial (loans) information has been extracted by an unauthorized party.
- blackflame7000 10y agoHonestly the same thing happened to me while an undergrad at UCLA. Their health care system was breached exposing a lot of PII. All I got was free credit monitoring for a year. There might have been a class action suit filed/ongoing but I don't expect to see a dime. Not sure there is much recourse aside from something drastic. I expect someday not to long from now someone will come up with a better method than a non-random ssn for associating people with accounts.