October 2, 2020

SUBJECT: Notice of Security Incident Involving Your Personal Information

Tidewater Community College Education Foundation (TCCEF) takes the protection and proper use of our donors’ information very seriously. We wanted to make our donors aware of a data security incident involving Blackbaud, TCCEF’s third party cloud hosting company (“Security Incident”).

Blackbaud recently notified us that it was the victim of a ransomware attack in which a bad actor removed a copy of certain backup files maintained by Blackbaud. The files contained some limited personal information of our donor population. The Security Incident was discovered and stopped by Blackbaud’s cybersecurity team with the help of independent forensics experts and law enforcement.

Blackbaud’s summary of the event is available at: http://www.blackbaud.com/securityincident.

Because of the nature of the Security Incident, Blackbaud has determined that the file removed may have contained demographic data and the following types of our donors’ personal information: Name, Address, Date of Birth, Spouse Name, Phone Number, Email Address, last four digits of credit card number and expiration, and check numbers. The cybercriminal did NOT have access more sensitive data, such as credit card numbers, bank account information, social security numbers, usernames, or passwords stored in the database.

We understand that Blackbaud, law enforcement, and third-party experts have investigated this incident, and Blackbaud has indicated that the information in question has been destroyed by the bad actor. Blackbaud has hired a third-party firm to monitor for any misuse or public posting of the impacted dataset.

Under these circumstances, we do not believe that you need to take any action. However, we felt it was important for you to know about this issue since it may involve your personal information. We apologize for any concern or inconvenience this breach has caused. Should you have any further questions or concerns regarding this matter and/or the protections available to you, please do not hesitate to contact TCC Educational Foundation at (757) 822-1080 or Foundation@tcc.edu.

Sincerely,

LaVerne Ellerbe, Interim Executive Director

TCC Educational Foundation