UNC security breach less severe than thought

A hacker who wormed into a UNC Chapel Hill computer server may not have gotten access to as much information as officials originally feared.

UNC School of Medicine officials said last week that a security breach had left data related to as many as 236,000 women enrolled in a mammography study exposed, including 163,000 social security numbers.

But now school officials say the number of exposed files is actually about 160,000 total, including about 114,000 social security numbers, said Stephanie Crayton, a UNC Health Care spokeswoman.

"As we're getting knee-deep into the investigation, we're finding the numbers coming down," she said.

The intrusion was detected in July but may have occurred as far back as 2007. A hacker got into the Carolina Mammography Registry, a 14-year-old UNC medical school research project that stores and analyzes mammogram information submitted by radiologists across the state.

The medical school set up a special phone line for people to call with questions. By mid-week, that line had received several dozen calls from women enrolled in the study, officials said.

The number is 877-434-3065 and is staffed from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.