KRISTIN MELODY
STAFF WRITER

In the wake of the theft of more than 700 student passwords this month, a university official said the campus is in the midst of a reconsideration of the student Internet usage policy.

Until now, Cal State San Marcos students were sent an email each semester suggesting that they change their passwords to avoid identity theft. Faculty members, by contrast, are required to change their passwords every 12 weeks.

Teresa Macklin, who works in the university’s instructional and information technology services department, said that as the result of the identity crimes uncovered on campus this month, the university is reconsidering its policy, and may require students to periodically change their passwords.

In the meantime, she advises students to be vigilant in protecting their privacy online.

“Students need to be careful where they’re signing in. They shouldn’t share their password, they should have a password that’s sufficiently complex and they need to get in [the system] and change it once in a while,” Macklin said. “With what happened here, it just goes to show that stuff can happen anywhere.”

After the thefts were discovered, Macklin said the university “locked down” the affected students’ accounts and the IT help desk helped these students get reestablished with new online credentials. University faculty members were also advised by e-mail to work with any affected students whose homework assignments may have been delayed or lost by the lockdown.

Macklin could not comment on the involvement of CSUSM student Matt Weaver’s involvement in the case or how the crime was detected, other than to say “there are times when you might notice an unusual pattern of activity in the log files.”

She also confirmed the university’s report that the suspect student was arrested on suspicion of using a “device” to obtain fellow students’ passwords. He was not using any sort of key-logging malware or software.

Macklin said affected students seem to be taking the identity theft issues in stride.

“I’ve heard some anecdotal stories of some students being shocked, but there wasn’t a lot of concern by students about the whole thing,” she said.