Thousands of current and former Chaminade University students are at risk for identity theft.
Their personal information was accidentally posted on the school's website.
The mistake was discovered on wednesday, but Chaminade officials say the information was posted on their website for the past eight months.
"That's a real big breach of security and dangerous you don't expect that to happen at your school," said Brenda Lozano, Chaminade University Senior.
Chaminade University students are learning their confidential information, including their social security numbers, may have been leaked online.
A report containing the personal information of 4,500 Chaminade students was inadvertently placed on obscure, though publicly accessible web pages on the university's website, apparently on the pages dealing with accreditation.
The 4,500 affected students attended the University as undergraduates between 1997 and 2006.
Chaminade University released a statement tonight saying: "The University has conducted a thorough investigation into the cause, which has been determined to be human error rather than any malicious intent."
University officials say the information was accessible for eight months, however, they don't believe anyone accessed the report during that time.
Still, the school sent out an email to current and past students this evening, notifying them about the situation, and they're asking the affected students to monitor and review their credit reports.
"I was shocked and surprised because people can just use our social security numbers to go open a credit card or something," said Lozano.
The statement also says: "The University is putting into place procedures designed to prevent a recurrence of this type and will be providing additional training to its staff regarding the protection of personal information."
"Some of us aren't near graduation so taking out loans and stuff if they've already messed with our credit it's going to be that much harder," said Krystal Hames, Chaminade University Senior.
You can get a free copy of your credit report at Annualcreditreport.com <http://www.annualcreditreport.com> or by calling (877) 322-8228.
For more information, a Chaminade email address has been set up at infosecure@chaminade.edu <mailto:infosecured@chaminade.edu>, as well as a webpage at www.chaminade.edu/infosecure <http://www.chaminade.edu/infosecure>.
