In late July, a third-party vendor that provides cloud data services, Blackbaud, notified the four University of Missouri campuses, including Missouri S&T, that the company experienced a data security incident in May 2020. This incident affected a significant number of other higher education institutions, nonprofit organizations and foundations, and included unauthorized access to personal data stored in the donor management platform.

Upon learning of this event, Missouri S&T immediately began an investigation to determine the extent of the incident. According to Blackbaud, no credit card information, back account information or Social Security numbers were exposed because S&T and the other UM campuses do not provide that information to Blackbaud. The Missouri S&T data acquired during this incident could have included public information such as name, date of birth, contact information, degree information and S&T giving history. For additional information and Blackbaud’s response, please visit Blackbaud’s website.

Missouri S&T officials take the protection of donor information very seriously, and the university is sharing this news out of an abundance of caution. University officials continue to discuss the breach with Blackbaud and their handling of university-related data.