Students can be especially prone to having their identities stolen, as UB's Derek Mascarenhas learned the hard way. A credit score isn't the only thing that can be impacted by identity theft - students need to fear being dropped or resigned from their classes or having their grades or transcripts permanently ruined.
On Oct. 8 at approximately 9 a.m., Derek Mascarenhas, a sophomore electrical engineering major, was in Capen Library, preparing for a morning of studying. After logging into UBLearns, Mascarenhas found that he had been resigned from every one of his classes.
According to records provided to Mascarenhas by the Student Response Center, his account was accessed from a library computer between 12:19 p.m. and 12:21 p.m. on Oct. 5, and his courses were resigned in a matter of two minutes.
Mascarenhas doesn't believe his password was simply guessed by the culprit.
"My password is a random phrase coded with numbers," Mascarenhas said. "I'm very particular with my passwords."
After speaking with UB officials, Mascarenhas was accused of resigning from his own classes. Mascarenhas was told he would have to get signatures from his professors to be reinstated into his classes.
"The overall aura I got of this whole thing (is that) I feel like the school tried to put this on me," Mascarenhas said.
Mascarenhas, who is an international student paying an increased international tuition rate, believes he has no reason to resign his classes, nor has he given his personal information to anyone in the past.
"I have good academic standing and I know my professors on a one-to-one basis," Mascarenhas said. "I would have no intention for doing this."
Prior to obtaining the signatures, Mascarenhas was re-registered for his classes, no questions asked.
Upon changing his password after the initial incident, on Oct. 17 at 3:22 p.m., Mascarenhas was again resigned from his classes from a public access computer.
"Two weeks later I was resigned out of my courses again," Mascarenhas said.
According to Mascarenhas, after being forced to rehash the issue once more with university officials, he was made to feel as though he were the cause of his resigned subjects.
Mascarenhas was interviewed by Michael Behun, a computer discipline officer with Academic Services.
"He inspected my Facebook, he inspected my ex-roomate's account, my girlfriend's account, and he did a Google search on me," Mascarenhas said. "He basically did a complete background check."
Behun, who declined to comment, was the primary investigator looking into the missing classes, Mascarenhas said.
"He tried to interrogate me," Mascarenhas said. "He played good cop, bad cop."
All of Mascarenhas' personal information that is publicly accessible was audited for investigative purposes. Mascarenhas consistently felt as if UB was placing the blame on him.
"The school was insisting it was my fault somehow," Mascarenhas said. "Since Behun is an employee of the school, I think it shows that the school feels this way."
According to Todd Kamenash, assistant director of Judicial Affairs, there are several reasons why a student would resign from all of their classes.
"One is that they thought they were prepared to succeed, but they found out after several assignments or exams that it was not the case," Kamenash said. "Another could be a family situation (or) a health situation that was a higher priority than school."
Mascarenhas claims that resigning his own courses at the stated time was impossible, since he was in class.
"I looked back at my papers and realized I was in class at that time and I hadn't gone to the library all day," Mascarenhas said.
According to Mascarenhas, Connie Cooke, director of the Student Response Center, instructed him to write a letter as well as deliver the necessary paperwork to his professors once again. Cooke was unavailable for comment.
"It was a letter of intention," Mascarenhas said. "I was told after I filled everything out. Then somehow they would reinstate me in my courses."
Although Mascarenhas was asked to compose a letter of intention, he was never told exactly what reasoning there was for it and who would see it.
"They (the Student Response Center) said they were going to send it to the board, although I was never told who the board was," Mascarenhas said.
Once again, upon being given directions as to going about getting his classes back, his classes were once again reinstated.
"Within a week I got my courses back," Mascarenhas said. "No questions were asked."
When Mascarenhas reestablished contact with Behun in hopes of finding out how the incidences happened, as well as who was behind them, the information was made unavailable to him.
"He (Behun) told me that (they) do investigations for the school and not for the individual," Mascarenhas said. "I told him I'm not an individual in this case, I'm the victim and I have a right to know."
Mascarenhas was given no answer as to whether university officials had discovered how his classes had been resigned.
"They never emphasized that this was (UB's) fault, or if this was someone else's fault," Mascarenhas said. "They always emphasized that this could be me trying to give the school a hard time."
With UB officials declining to accept any responsibility, Mascarenhas said that this leaves other students as well as himself at risk. Many students are left without a defense, or even a way to prevent the same thing from happening to them, according to Mascarenhas.
"I'm just angered because such a big school should have a system for something like this," Mascarenhas said. "The school wants to be considered world-class. You shouldn't be able to resign your courses over the Internet so easily."
According to Kamenash, there have been very few incidences of students having their UB identities stolen, or having students who have been resigned from classes in the past.
"Dating back to 2005, there has been one such case reported to the Office of Judicial Affairs and Student Advocacy," Kamenash said.
Kamenash said that any student who feels their UB identity has been stolen should file a report with the University Police Department, and then to contact the Student Response Center so they can prevent financial ramifications. Finally, students should get in touch with their adviser to go over their academic record, requirements and transcript information.
According to Dennis Black, the vice president of Student Affairs, student identities can be stolen in many different ways.
"According to CIT, (this is) usually caused by the student losing control of their password," Black said in an E-mail. "The breach could have resulted from many causes. Some of the possibilities are: a roommate watching a login, leaving a logged-in machine unattended, an angry girlfriend/boyfriend with whom he has shared his password, a compromised machine with a password logger or use of the campus wireless network without using the campus VPN (Virtual Private Network)."
Students can also prevent their UB identities from being stolen with the same precautions they take to protect themselves from identity theft.
"Make sure to log off immediately after completing a registration session," Kamenash said. "Don't let anybody do your registration for you, and don't provide anybody with any of your password information. Don't lend your computer to others."
Mascarenhas is relieved now that the possibly of class resignation is no longer a threat.
"Now I'm safe because the add/drop period is over," Mascarenhas said.
Mascarenhas does not intend to damage the reputation of UB or its employees. He said he only wants the truth about what happened to him, and to prevent the same from happening from other students.
"I'm not out to make the school look bad," Mascarenhas said. "I just want people to know what has happened."
Rick Lesniak, director of Computational Information Technology, declined to comment on the student's situation.
Michael Behun, computer discipline officer, declined to comment.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
