Posted On June 15, 2022 Consumer Privacy & Data Breaches
June 15, 2022 – Simpson University reported a data breach after the company was targeted in a recent cybersecurity attack. As a result of the breach, the name or other personal identifier in combination with: Social Security Number of certain individuals was compromised. The Simpson University data breach is believed to have impacted as many as 6,175 individuals. On June 9, 2022, Simpson University sent out data breach letters to those individuals whose information was affected by the breach.
The data breach lawyers at Console & Associates, P.C. are going to begin interviewing victims of the breach to determine what damages they sustained and what legal claims may be available to them. If you recently received a NOTICE OF DATA BREACH from Simpson University, contact us at (866) 778-5500 to discuss your legal options, or submit a confidential contact form for a free case evaluation.
Below is a portion of the letter that Simpson University sent to individuals affected by the data breach:
Dear [Redacted],
Simpson University values and respects the privacy of your information, which is why we are writing to advise you of a recent incident that may have involved some of your personal information. We have no reason to believe that your personal information has been misused for the purpose of committing fraud or identity theft. Nonetheless, we want to make you aware of the incident and provide you with guidance on what you can do to protect yourself, should you feel it is appropriate to do so.
What Happened?
We recently identified suspicious activity in certain Simpson University employee email accounts. Upon discovering the activity, we promptly secured the email accounts and began an internal investigation. We also engaged a forensic security firm to further investigate and confirm the security of our email and computer systems. This investigation determined that an unauthorized party temporarily gained access to certain of these email accounts between July 29, 2021 and September 17, 2021.
What Information Was Involved?
Because an unauthorized party temporarily had access to the email accounts, we reviewed the accounts’ contents to determine if they contained any personal information. On February 1, 2022, based on that review, we determined that the accounts contained your name, together with your [Redacted]. The accounts may also have contained information from your education record, such as your major and your year in school (e.g., Freshman or Sophomore). Our investigation did not find evidence confirming that the third party actually viewed any of this information.
What We Are Doing.
In addition to the actions described above, we have taken steps to reduce the risk of this type of incident occurring in the future, including enhancing our technical security measures. Although we are not aware of any instances of fraud or identity theft involving your personal information, we are offering a complimentary one year membership of Experian IdentityWorksSM Credit 3B. This product helps detect possible misuse of your personal information and provides you with identity protection services focused on immediate identification and resolution of identity theft. IdentityWorks Credit 3B is completely free to you, and enrolling in this program will not hurt your credit score. For more information on identity theft prevention and IdentityWorks Credit 3B, including instructions on how to activate your complimentary one-year membership, please see the additional information provided in this letter.
What You Can Do.
While we have no evidence that your personal information has been misused, we encourage you to take advantage of the complimentary credit monitoring included in this letter. Additionally, if your username/email address and password were contained in the accounts as reported in the What Information Was Involved section above, we recommend you promptly change your password. You can also find more information on steps to protect yourself against possible identity theft or fraud in the enclosed Additional Important Information sheet.
For More Information.
We value the trust you place in us to protect your privacy, take our responsibility to safeguard your personal information seriously, and apologize for any inconvenience or concern this incident might cause. For further information and assistance, please call (855) 503-3401 from 6:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. Pacific, Monday through Friday, excluding some US holidays.
