Kent State University was recently notified of a security breach at one of our vendors, Blackbaud. Because your privacy and that of our alumni, donors, students, faculty, and staff is very important to us, we felt it necessary to make you aware of this issue, even though it is not KSU’s breach. Blackbaud, which works with many nonprofits to support their fundraising and engagement efforts, was the target of a ransomware attack, where constituent data was stolen by cybercriminals.
Some of your information may have been obtained. According to Blackbaud, data accessed by the cybercriminal may have contained public information such as name, title, date of birth, spouse, phone numbers, gender and addresses. Blackbaud has reported that no other information was compromised. Please see the Blackbaud announcement for more details.
We urge you to remain vigilant and promptly report any suspicious activity or suspected identity theft to the proper authorities. Be aware of persons calling or mailing you donation requests and keep in mind that all online KSU donations will require that you go to one of our official sites, in which URLs will show one of these URLs:
If you are suspect of requests for donations, please feel free to contact the KSU Institutional Advancement staff at advancement@kent.edu.
If you suspect that this information is being used nefariously to harass or contact you without your consent, please contact your local law enforcement, non-emergency number and report the contact.
Even though Kent State did not provide email addresses or passwords to this third-party vendor, if you suspect that your online digital identity might be at risk, consider changing your Kent State University email password (if you have one), as well as any other important sites (such as banking, etc.)
Refer to the following guidance on digital identity theft:
Please be assured we take data protection extremely seriously and are grateful for the continued support of our alumni and friends. We sincerely regret any inconvenience this may cause you. Should you have any further questions or concerns regarding this matter, please contact security@kent.edu. With an overabundance of caution, we also suggest you monitor national credit reporting agencies and report to them if you have concerns about suspicious activities.
For your convenience, the contact information for these credit agencies is below:
- Equifax: https://www.equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services/ 800-685-1111
- Experian: https://www.experian.com/help/ 888-397-3742
- Transunion: https://www.transunion.com/credit-help 888-909-8872