The University of California at Berkeley is taking the protection of their students’ personal data very seriously and have implemented data-masking techniques in an effort to thwart identity theft and security breaches. 

The school understands the importance of this after hackers broke into the health-services database earlier this year and gained access to the personal records of about 160,000 individuals.

The data-masking technology is incredibly interesting since it hides data in plain sight so that a students first and last name could be right there on the computer screen but, because the lettering has been moved around, it camouflages the true information.  The same technique is being used to conceal student identification numbers and other sensitive data.

Since a master copy of the real information is kept in a separate database it is still important for educational institutions to make sure that their network is properly protected with up-to-date security software.

Students can take the extra step of making sure that their personal computers are protected with products like Computrace LoJack for Laptops.

image: sxc.hu/svilen001