United States – Department of Education

A large number of Americans may have had their personally identifiable data compromised by the United States Department of Education. According to reports, the agency left the Social Security numbers of tens of thousands of people seeking student debt relief unprotected and susceptible to a data breach for at least six months. While the information was stored securely enough to prevent an external breach, any users of the agency’s systems could freely access the information in a simple shared folder, including outside contractors.