Social security numbers of 43,000 Yale students, staff and alumni were available through Google’s search engine for 10 months, according to a letter from Len Peters, Yale’s information technology services director.
The file containing the social security numbers had been available to the public since September 2010 when Google modified its search engine and what information was publicly available, according to CNBC.
“As soon as Yale learned of the problem, the file was removed from the Yale computer and Google removed it from its search engine,” Peters wrote in the letter.
Peters confirmed in the Aug. 10 letter that the information is no longer accessible through Google.
The university is offering two years free credit monitoring and identity theft insurance to those whose information was made available, according to the Yale Daily News.
