10/11/2012 -

Personal and financial information on about 280,000 students and employees has been compromised after a hacking incident at a Florida college, according to theFlorida Department of Education (FDE).

More than 3,000 employee records, some of which contained financial information, were compromised at Northwest Florida State College.

About 76,000 records on current and former students containing personal identification information were hacked. About 200,000 records with information including names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and ethnicity were also stolen on students who were eligible for Bright Futures scholarships for the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 school years.

The hack occurred between May 21 and September 24, according to amemosent to employees by college president Ty J. Handy. One or more hackers appears to have accessed a folder, with multiple files on it, on the university’s main server, he said. The hackers were able to work between files to piece together information on individuals.

So far, about 50 people have beenvictimized by identity theft as a result.

The FDE is working with the college to further investigate the breach,strengthen information security, and notify affected individuals as quickly as possible, the department said.

photoDonkeyHotey/flickr