
Ask HN: Trade School's Online Portal Hacked – Legal Recourse? - leesalminen
My girlfriend attends a trade school for veterinary technicians in the US.<p>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.<p>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.
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blackflame7000
In 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.

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leesalminen
Of 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.

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blackflame7000
Honestly 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.

