Dear Golden West College Donor,
Your support is essential to our students and the opportunities we provide the community. We understand the trust you put in us. Protecting your personal data is part of that trust.
The Golden West College Foundation just received notice from third-party technology provider Blackbaud that cybercriminals copied data in May 2020 for the purpose of extorting funds from the company. Blackbaud paid the ransom so the hackers would delete the data.
The Foundation and other Blackbaud clients—colleges and non-profits worldwide—have no way to independently verify that the data was deleted. Blackbaud's statement said in part, "based on the nature of the incident, our research, and third party (including law enforcement) investigation, we have no reason to believe that any data went beyond the cybercriminal, was or will be misused; or will be disseminated or otherwise made available publicly."
Blackbaud asserts that no credit card data was compromised and that all sensitive information (social security numbers, government ID numbers, etc.) was encrypted. Further, we do not upload social security numbers, or government id’s or sensitive information to Blackbaud as part of our operations. Any credit card numbers entered by donors on our online donation page are fully encrypted and according to Blackbaud were not part of the data breach. To read Blackbaud’s full statement, please visit blackbaud.com/securityincident.
It is troubling that Blackbaud waited so long to notify us of the cyberattack. The provider’s actions are not in keeping with the Foundation’s or College’s standards of transparency and due diligence. We have conveyed an expectation of immediate security improvements and will review our continued relationship with Blackbaud accordingly.
Please reach out to me at bberman@gwc.cccd.edu with further questions. Please also reach out to me if you get an unexpected fundraising email from the Foundation and wish to verify its authenticity.
Sincerely,
Bruce Berman
Director, Foundation & Community Relations
Golden West College Foundation
Ph: (714) 895-8315
bberman@gwc.cccd.edu