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Edinburgh Live
Edinburgh Live
National
Claire Galloway

Blackbaud hack: Edinburgh Zoo members' data stolen in massive breach- National Trust also affected

The wildlife charity which runs Edinburgh Zoo and the National Trust have become the latest victims of the Blackbaud cyber attack.

The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) is part of a growing list of organisations which has been forced to issue a data breach alert.

Heriot-Watt University and Edinburgh Napier University are also among several Scottish universities which have confirmed a breach.

The breach is linked to Blackbaud, a cloud computing provider which revealed it had discovered a ransomware attack in May, and subsequently paid the attackers a ransom.

However, the US firm only alerted clients of the breach this month and say the data did not include bank account or payment card details.

RZSS members have begun being notified of the breach after the charity were "recently" made aware by Blackbaud and insist that members' financial security details are encrypted, and are therefore secure.

However, personal details - such as names, addresses, postcodes and email addresses -were stolen but the charity say they have since been destroyed, reassuring members that the risk is "very low" but urge them to remain vigilant.

Elsewhere, The National Trust said data about its volunteering and fundraising communities had been compromised and that the organisation have launched an internal investigation.

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It's thought over 125 organisations around the world have been targeted in the attack so far and include UK non-profits, as well as museums, schools, churches and even food banks internationally.

Correction: the original headline for this article said that National Trust members' data had been stolen in the hack, the National Trust say this is not the case and the headline has been amended accordingly.

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