MSU students and faculty have been warned by e-mail of break-in attempts to several college servers during the summer months, which could have compromised their Social Security numbers.

In July, more than 27,000 students were informed that their personal information could have been compromised by an attack on the College of Education's server.

The server housed information that included student names, addresses, student courses and personal identification numbers. After the intrusion was discovered at the beginning of April, the server was taken off-line and a computer forensic investigation on the incident was started, said College of Education Assistant Dean Gail Nutter.

The attack on the College of Education server is the latest in a string of similar intrusions on MSU servers. An intrusion was also discovered within MSU's Department of Human Resources, which could have allowed the culprit to gain access to the Social Security numbers of all MSU employees and retirees.

Last spring, MSU warned more than 40,000 Wharton Center patrons that a hacker broke into a server involved in credit card processing.

David Gift, vice provost for Libraries, Computing & Technology, said MSU's policy of fully disclosing all intrusions gives the illusion that it's happening all of the time.

The university is taking a number of steps to protect sensitive information, Gift said. MSU is bolstering work security and minimizing sensitive information's potential exposure by eliminating personal data that doesn't need to be stored for a long period of time.

Gift said most computer intrusions are done for reasons other than to steal data, such as people seeking file space to illegally move files around. He added that it's difficult to determine the culprit of any hacking attempt because the culprits take extra measures to disguise their identities.