Brock University wants to inform past employment applicants of a privacy breach that occurred Dec. 16 when a hacker accessed a storage location containing job applications and resumes that have been sent to the University since 2011.

An investigation has commenced and is ongoing. At this point, University officials do not believe that data accessed through the breach is likely to contain any personal financial or health information.

There are currently 79,428 resumes and related job application files in the storage location – every application received since Brock implemented its submission app in 2011.

Brock’s Information Technology Services staff found that the hack itself was only able to transfer 442MB of the file, about 1.6% of the total information in the storage location. This equates to approximately 1270 resumes. It is unknown if the hacker was able to read the information because the transfer was cut off, possibly corrupting any material the hacker managed to download to that point.

Upon discovering the breach, Brock contacted the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC) and continues to work with the Commissioner.

University officials will continue the investigation as long as necessary, to fully understand the vulnerability and establish how to prevent similar attacks.

Brian Hutchings, Brock’s Vice-President of Administration, said that upon learning of the breach, the University responded immediately.

“The security of peoples’ information is very important to us,” said Hutchings. “Once the situation was identified steps were immediately taken to stop all unauthorized access to the storage location. The breach is still under investigation, and we are evaluating our security protocols and procedures to ensure the security of information.”

Brock University apologizes for this breach. Any questions or concerns regarding this incident should be directed to Brock’s Freedom of Information and Privacy Coordinator at Privacy@Brocku.ca.