Cal Poly Pomona online security breached

POMONA, Calif. University officials say that personal information from up to 355 student applicants, including social security numbers, addresses and telephone numbers were accessible on the Internet for about five years.

The information was inadvertently left in a publicly accessible computer folder from 2003 to November of 2008. A former applicant found the mistake while searching for information on himself.

The school says that even after the data was removed from a university server, some of it remained available through Google until just a few months ago.

Last week, the school contacted Google to clear the information, and informed applicants of the issue, urging them to contact credit reporting agencies.

AP contributed to this report.