UNIVERSITY chiefs in Aberystwyth are investigating a data breach after an American cloud provider was targeted by hackers.

Aberystwyth University is one of more than 20 institutions in the UK, America and Canada to have been affected by the hack on South Carolina-based Blackbaud, who are a leading provider of education financial management and administration software.

A spokesperson from Aberystwyth University explained: “We have been notified by Blackbaud that they have suffered a data breach which affected a university alumni and supporter web portal and information management system. 

“This was part of a wider cyberattack which has impacted data hosted on behalf of a number of UK universities.

“Blackbaud has offered assurances that no bank account or credit card details were taken. The company has also stated that the stolen data has now been destroyed and has no reason to believe it was misused.

 

“We take data security extremely seriously.

“We are urgently investigating this incident and are awaiting further details from Blackbaud.

“We are in the process of contacting those online portal users and recipients of our alumni and supporter e-newsletters whom we believe may have been affected.

“We have also informed the Information Commissioner’s Office and will cooperate fully with any further steps they wish to take.”

 

The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office [ICO], said in a statement: "Blackbaud has reported an incident affecting multiple data controllers to the ICO.

“We will be making enquiries to both Blackbaud and the respective controllers, and encourage all affected controllers to evaluate whether they need to report the incident to the ICO individually."