UC Davis employees are not affected by a recent computer system security breach that may have disclosed personal identity data of some 265,000 state employees.
On May 24, state government officials announced the unauthorized access of files belonging to the state controller at the Teale Data Center in Rancho Cordova. According to published reports, the security breach originally occurred April 5.
The breach potentially revealed information including Social Security numbers, last names, first and middle initials and payroll deduction amounts, but did not include dates of birth or home addresses.
The hacking involved data on active full- and part-time employees paid by the controller's office, including some California State University staff and faculty, said Robert Ono, information technology security coordinator at UC Davis. "But the information loss does not impact UC Davis staff and faculty members," he said.
Information about state workers, including judges and elected officials, reportedly also was accessible.
And some media reports have indicated that the unauthorized access included data on "university professors," said Jim Dolgonas, assistant vice president of Information Systems and Computing at UC's Office of the President.
"This has caused some concern among the University of California community," Dolgonas said.
However, he said, the Teale Data Center does not host UC employee or other UC data. And no break-ins to central UC payroll or personnel databases have been detected, he said.
In addition, it has been reported that no files containing information on state retirees were compromised during the recent breach, Ono said.
And state officials have said that no U.S. government databases were affected.
Ono added that it is unknown at this time if any of the information was actually downloaded by the hacker.
Sen. Steve Peace, D-El Cajon, an-nounced plans May 28 to investigate the state's response to the breach and to examine what can be done to avoid future hacking. Peace chairs the Senate Committee on Privacy and has called for a June 12 hearing on the matter.
Meanwhile, the state controller's office is providing some details about the information loss and advice for protecting personal information at http://www.sco.ca.gov/eo/ personal/assistance.htm.