Soon after the release of a statement from Northwest Florida State College acknowledging a
data breach that exposed nearly 300,000 people, word began to filter out that many victims were already being hit with fraud.
So far, about 50 people - all of them employees at the school - whose data was exposed in the incident have come forward to say that they have already been hit by
identity theft, according to a report from the Miami television station
CBS4. Those victimized include the college's president, and other assorted faculty and staff members.
Often, their sensitive personal information was used to either obtain personal loans or take out credit cards through the Home Depot, the report said. While this is a relatively small number of the 300,000 or so victims who are in the process of being notified by the school, it's also possible that many more have been affected by this type of crime but are yet to report or even learn of it.
Ondrej Krehel, the chief information security officer for Identity Theft 911, has a blog about the ways in which
data breaches can lead to identity theft for consumers.
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