The campus community has been notified by email. Vice Chancellor Gretchen Bolar said that because visitors may also have been victimized, she wanted to put the word generally out to the media.
“We are doing everything we can think of to notify people,” she said. “If you used your credit or debit card at any UCR Dining Services location from Summer 2011 through November 16, 2011, you may have been affected by this breach of security,” she said. The hacker had unauthorized access to card numbers, cardholder names, card expiration dates and an encrypted version of debit card pin numbers.
UCR recommends to monitor credit card activity carefully, and report any suspicious activity. Any fraud should be reported immediately to the financial institution that issued the card, as well as to UCR through a website at http://ucrcreditdebitalert.ucr.edu/. The website does not request credit/debit card information.
So far, 17 people have complained of fraudulent charges to the campus police department. An unknown number may have reported problems directly to their banks. Campus officials said 144 people have registered concerns about misuse of their cards on a campus-provided website.
“We’ve identified where the breach occurred,” Police Chief Mike Lane said. “Since then, we have a different monitoring system, and we’re checking it daily.”
Lane said the fraudulent purchases reported to his department have ranged from a few dollars to $1,200.
