The University of Tasmania has realised an official apology after an email bugle released around 20,000 students personal details to the universities entire faculty. The information was made public from Microsoft Office365’s SharePoint platform, which was used by the institution to store, share and access files. The information was accessible to all users who had access to a utas.edu.au email address.
It appears that the incident showed no association with any malicious activity, according to the university. There was simply an issue with the configuration of the access privileges to the Office365 platform, which displays content to users based on their access privileges. Since COVID-19 there has been a rise in malicious attacks on educational and research institutions, but fortunately, it appears that this incidence was simply a mistake. Since the incident, the university has acted quickly to secure the information according to the University of Tasmania Vice-Chancellor Professor Rufus Black, who said: “We have undertaken a thorough review of how this information became accessible and took immediate steps to ensure it is secure.”
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