Blackbaud Incident

What Happened

On July 16, 2020, the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth was notified that Blackbaud, one of our third-party customer relationship management service providers, discovered and contained a ransomware attack in May 2020.

Based on the information we received from Blackbaud, a cybercriminal accessed copies of some customer files containing constituent information. Blackbaud worked with security experts and law enforcement to respond to the ransom threat and reports to have received confirmation that the stolen data was destroyed and not used by the cybercriminal.

What Information Was Involved

Blackbaud has confirmed that the data accessed contained public information such as name, date of birth, contact, education and philanthropic interests. No credit or debit card information was part of the data theft. Social Security numbers, bank account information and passwords were not accessed. HSC is continuing to closely monitor this situation. If we discover additional information affecting you, we will reach out to you directly.

Actions From Blackbaud

In order to protect data and mitigate potential identity theft, Blackbaud met the cybercriminal’s ransomware demand and confirmed that the data was destroyed. Blackbaud has been monitoring the web in an effort to verify the data accessed by the cybercriminal has not been misused, and has already implemented several security changes to protect our constituent data from subsequent incidents.

What You Can Do

We take the protection and proper use of your information very seriously and are remaining vigilant as we continue to monitor and learn more, and we respectfully recommend that you do the same. Please promptly report any suspicious activity or suspected identity theft to the proper authorities.

For More Information

You can read Blackbaud’s notification of the security incident and review details of the company’s security, risk compliancy and privacy programs. Should you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact our HSC IT Team at blackbaudincident@unthsc.edu.