According to the Friday announcement made by the University of California (UC) at Berkeley, overseas hackers broke into a computer database of the school's health services center, during October 2008-April 2009, and accessed the personal records of as many as 160,000 students and alumni.

The hackers gained access to Social Security numbers, health insurance information, and other medical information - such as immunization records and names of physicians consulted. Among the individuals affected by the data breach are present and former UC Berkeley students having insurance coverage from University Health Services, along with their spouses and parents, in case they are linked to the mentioned insurance.

As per the UC officials, some of the personal records - like treatments and therapies undertaken by patients - remained unaffected, as such information is stored in a separate system managed by University Health Services.

The breach of data was noticed after the messages left by the hackers were discovered by a campus IT administrator while routine maintenance.

On learning of the hack, the university immediately activated an emergency security incident team to examine the span and the impact of the breach, and started notifying the affected individuals. While some of the people were sent e-mails on Friday, the others will be notified next week. Moreover, the university has set up a 24-hour hotline for queries from data breach victims.