The University of Georgia recently announced a significant data breach involving the names and Social Security numbers of more than 8,500 current and former employees. While hackers may have compromised the system as early as September 28, officials didn't begin their investigation until October 1, leaving the cybercriminals with several days of unimpeded access to the university's system.

"This appears to us to be a planned intrusion by someone who knew enough about our operations to know which accounts to attack and where the sensitive information was located within the system," Chester said. "It is clearly a criminal act of computer trespass, and we are working with UGA Police to investigate."

Although the university didn't say whether the sensitive information had been encrypted, it noted that potentially affected individuals would be notified by mail and offered credit monitoring services. Officials first noticed the breach when an unknown source attempted to reset the passwords of two employees who work in highly sensitive information technology positions. Once those accounts had been breached, attackers used them to access personnel records.

The recent breach is not the only one that the University of Georgia has had to contend with, and the previous one went unnoticed for a significantly longer amount of time. As SC Magazine writer Angela Moscaritolo reported last year, a file containing data regarding more than 18,000 students and staff was made available on a public web server in 2008. The file contained information such as Social Security numbers, names and addresses, and remained available until 2011. As these incidents showcase, highly damaging data security incidents can go unnoticed for a few days or even years. Utilizing data encryption software can help prevent high-profile breaches from causing large-scale organizational damage.