April 8 CIO Message - Employees

From: Adam Stone

Subject: The UC data breach is serious. Protect yourself and your family.

Colleagues,

It’s important that you take action in response to the UC data breach incident. For many of us, getting these types of notices has become disturbingly routine. Fatigue sets in and we don’t think much about them.

That would be a mistake in this case.

This breach is serious. The stolen data includes almost everything someone needs to take advantage of you. It includes data not just on UC employees and retirees but potentially on family members who are on your plans as dependents and beneficiaries as well.

Sign up for the UC-provided Experian monitoring services using the instructions on the UCnet site (linked below). Lock your credit reports. Do the same for your family members that may have been impacted. Monitor your accounts and respond to alerts about suspicious activity, especially in the near term.

Much of this data is already public on the web. This opens up the potential for fraud to many more bad actors looking to exploit this data breach for their own financial gain.

Take the time to follow the guidance from UC to protect yourself.

Ucnet.universityofcalifornia.edu provides FAQs and information on how to sign up for free credit monitoring, as well as other advice on how to protect yourself. Ucincident.lbl.gov is a simple Lab-maintained page with links to UC and Lab specific information for reference.

You can also send questions about this incident to communications@ucop.edu

This is a frustrating and upsetting situation for many of us, but please don’t let that stop you from taking action to help protect yourself and your family.

Adam Stone

Interim Chief Information Officer

You can validate this email by noting that the links go to universityofcalifornia.edu and lbl.gov. You can view this email text on ucincident.lbl.gov.