Public school pension-fund data compromised

A recent security breach caused the names and Social Security numbers of about 2,000 members of the pension fund for Pennsylvania public school employees to be accessible to the public, state officials said Tuesday.

The Public School Employees' Retirement System sent a notification letter about the situation to about 2,000 of its more than 600,000 members last week, spokeswoman Evelyn M. Tatkovski said. The letter offered a year of free credit monitoring to those whose data were compromised.

At least one person accessed the information, said Dan Egan, another spokesman. The incident is under review "to make sure it's not going to happen again," Egan said.

The data breach occurred when an employee inadvertently posted an unencrypted file on a public website, Tatkovski said. The site is not visited regularly by computer users, Tatkovski and Egan said.

"It's human error, and not that our system was being hacked," Tatkovski told the Daily News.

Egan declined to say how long the personal information was accessible online.

Luciano Castro, 45, of Philadelphia, received the letter and said he didn't buy the official version.

"I think PSERS is covering their tracks," said Castro, director of security at a city charter school. "To me, it's a security breach. I don't believe what they're saying at all."

Castro said he's concerned that his name and Social Security number were released and may contact a lawyer.