Southwest Mississippi Community College officials say the records of more than 7,000 students and former students were left vulnerable by last week’s computer breach.

Southwest officials say the junior college has hired a firm to help determine the extent of the breach and notify students, whose names, Social Security numbers, addresses, genders, races and grade point averages were leaked over the Internet.

The college says all potentially affected people will be contacted by mail.

Officials say when a crashed server was brought back online, several files were available on the Internet. Officials say the problem was corrected within a few hours.

The college also is making available an Identity Theft Resources Center to students.