Credit monitoring and fraud restoration services will be provided to about 98,000 University of Hawaii students, alumni, faculty, employees and others potentially affected by five data breaches that occurred from 2009 to 2011, under a settlement reached in a class-action lawsuit.

Services to cost about $550,000 will be provided to breach victims by Kroll Background America Inc. for two years. The settlement, announced Thursday, includes about $155,000 in attorney fees and is subject to court approval.

Attorney Thomas Grande, who represented UH alumnus Phillipe Gross in the class-action lawsuit against UH, said he expects the institution to provide immediate credit monitoring and fraud restoration services to breach victims without having to be forced to do so should another data breach occur in the future.

Lynne Waters, associate vice president of external affairs and university relations at UH, did not respond when asked whether UH will provide services for a two-year period should a future data breach occur.

In an effort to prevent future breaches, Waters said the university has taken steps to secure their system.

"The University of Hawaii engaged an expert external consultant to review its information security policies and practices across the university system, including all 10 campuses, and is now actively implementing the recommendations as a systemwide security program," she said Thursday.

Breaches of personal data occurred at Kapiolani Community College in April 2009 and June 2011, Honolulu Community College in May 2010, the University of Hawaii at Manoa in June 2010 and UH-West Oahu in October 2010.

In November 2010 Gross, who attended UH from 1990 to 1998, filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court against UH after he discovered unauthorized credit card charges in August of that year. Several months earlier he was told four other names were associated with his Social Security number when he applied for a job with the Department of Health.

Grande and attorney Bruce Sherman, who also represented plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said in almost every instance of more than 40 data breaches that occurred at colleges and universities across the country, two years of credit monitoring and fraud restoration services were offered to those affected.

"We expect that standard to be followed (at UH) in the future," said Grande.

Letters will be sent to breach victims by March 1 that will allow them to sign up for credit monitoring services online. Information will be available at www.uhdatabreachlawsuit.com.

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