FARGO (AP) - Some North Dakota State University student loan and personnel records were left open for unauthorized Internet access for about two weeks, NDSU officials said Thursday.

Computer experts were trying to determine if any records had been viewed by someone other than the person who told the school about the security breach, said John Adams, an NDSU vice president for finance and administration. He did not identify that person.

The records were left open after computer maintenance, he said.

"If it's open, somebody's bound to find it," Adams said. "That's how we found out about it. We heard from one of the honest ones."

Adams said loan records of 57 students were at risk, involving people who last name begins with "A" and had loans administered by the North Dakota Student Loan Service Center. The school was notifying those students, he said.

An undetermined number of human resources and payroll records also were left open, apparently of former NDSU employees in 2005 and part of 2006, Adams said.

The records include Social Security numbers, Adams said.

"That's all it takes," he said.

The computer maintenance came after a power surge and the breach was not a "malicious attacker seeking the records," Adams said.

The records were on computers owned and maintained by a third-party vendor hired to archive electronic companies of paper documents, Adams said. He did not identify the vendor.

The school sent out a statement Thursday to notify students and others on campus. Officials plan to discuss ways to prevent further security lapses, Adams said.

"I don't know how you can ever be 100 percent safe," he said. "Unfortunately, you read stories about people who do nothing but try and hack into computers."