Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh’s Oakland section contacted its members this week to report a data breach from one of its contractors.

For nearly two decades, Phipps has used , Blackbaud, Inc.’s donor data management software, said Joe Reed, Phipps director of marketing. Blackbaud, of Charleston, S.C. calls itself as the world’s leading cloud software company.

“Blackbaud has completed an investigation and has no reason to believe the data was or will be misused, disseminated or otherwise made public,” Reed said.

Phipps’ letter to present and past members states: “Based on our communications with Blackbaud and an in-depth review by our IT team, we understand while a ransomware attack occurred sometime in early 2020, it did not access credit card information, bank account information, passwords, or any other private financial data because these fields were encrypted.”

However, members names, emails and physical addresses, might have been affected, the letter stated.

In a description of the breach, Blackbaud stated on its website that the May, 2020, ransomware attack attempted to “disrupt the business by locking companies out of their own data and servers.” Blackbaud and independent forensics experts and law enforcement, prevented the “cybercriminal from blocking our system access and fully encrypting files; and ultimately expelled them from our system.”

Prior to locking the cybercriminal out, the cybercriminal removed a copy of a subset of data,the company said in a statement on its website.

“The cybercriminal did not access credit card information, bank account information, or Social Security numbers,” the company said.

A third-party investigation of the breach “suggests there is no reason to believe that this information will be misused or shared publicly,” the Phipps letter said.

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