NC food banks, universities attacked in widespread Blackbaud data breach of nonprofits

The Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina told donors Friday that it was a victim in a widespread data breach that has affected numerous nonprofits.

The Food Bank said some donor data was compromised as part of a ransomware attack against Blackbaud, a company that provides donor management software to many institutions.

The data breach did not release any credit card or financial account information, which the Food Bank notes it doesn’t store.

Information that was compromised in the breach included names, titles, spouse’s names, date of birth and contact details, like addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. The Food Bank says it rarely keeps data of births of its donors, though it sometimes does for volunteers.

Samantha Wright, director of development operations and analytics at the Food Bank, said the Food Bank was notified in July about the Blackbaud breach, and hired a data privacy attorney to investigate the incident and help it decide how to respond.

“I think [the breach] is really unfortunate, and we really looked to our attorney to determine whether Blackbaud’s response was thorough and adequate. He believes that it is,” Wright said. “[Blackbaud] have been very forthright with us and sharing as much information as possible. They are working with authorities and experts in the field to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Blackbaud is a popular tool used by many institutions, meaning the breach affected a wide swath of nonprofits and other businesses. The company said that the ransomware incident occurred in May.

The UNC System said in July that it and other higher-education institutions were affected by the Blackbaud breach. At the time, UNC said Blackbaud assured them that no Social Security numbers or bank information was compromised.

Planned Parenthood said most of its state-based organizations, including ones in North Carolina, were impacted by the Blackbaud breach as well.

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This story was originally published August 21, 2020 at 4:01 PM with the headline "NC food banks, universities attacked in widespread Blackbaud data breach of nonprofits."