RADFORD, Va. – Attorneys have sent a preservation notice to Radford University leaders to preserve all relevant evidence regarding a possible data breach involving former students.
Former Michigan assistant football coach Matt Weiss has been federally indicted after prosecutors accused him of hacking into private accounts of student-athletes to access potentially compromising images.
“When it initially came out, we thought it was a local Michigan issue, and it is very quickly evolving into a national issue that will likely hit every state,” said Lisa Esser-Weidenfeller, an attorney involved in the case.
According to the indictment, Weiss hacked into the accounts of over 150,000 students.
This week, Radford University was pulled into the legal fallout.
In a release from attorneys representing the case, they have requested the school to preserve all evidence relevant to the case, including emails, videos, and any records involving personal data belonging to student-athletes from 2014 through 2018.
“For a subset of those accounts, up to 3,300 is my understanding, he was actually downloading personal, intimate images and videos of, again, men and women,” said attorney Lisa Esser-Weidenfeller.
Weidenfeller noted that recently, the Department of Justice sent breach of data emails to the affected individuals.
She recommends anyone who thinks they could be affected and attended school during that time to go back and check.
10 reached out to Radford for comment on the situation, and the university responded, saying they have not received this letter and therefore, cannot comment.