“We believe this unauthorized access was not an attempt to steal customer information; however, it is possible that files containing personal information may have been accessed and therefore we are making this notification,” the letter says.

“The incident has been contained and we have partnered with a leading forensics firm to understand and remediate this issue. In addition, we have asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation for assistance.”

The Monsanto data breach has some similarities to another incident reported this week at San Diego State University. Officials at SDSU said that some information on a specific database was accessible to unauthorized users for a period of time, but they didn’t have any evidence that it was ever accessed by any employees or students who shouldn’t have seen it, or by attackers.

Image from Flickr photos of Thanasis Anastasiou.