The Arizona Attorney General’s Office, along with 49 other state attorneys general, has reached a settlement with software company Blackbaud for its deficient data security practices and for its response to a 2020 ransomware event.
The ransomware attack exposed the personal information of millions of consumers across the United States.
Under the settlement, Blackbaud has agreed to overhaul its data security and data breach notification practices and make a $49.5 million payment to states. Arizona will receive more than $1.8 million from the settlement.
This settlement resolves allegations of the attorneys general that Blackbaud violated state consumer protection laws, data breach notification laws, and HIPAA by failing to implement reasonable data security and remediate known security gaps, which allowed unauthorized persons to gain access to Blackbaud’s network, and then failing to provide its customers with timely, complete, or accurate information regarding the breach, as required by law.
As a result of Blackbaud’s actions, notification to the consumers whose personal information was exposed was significantly delayed or never occurred at all insofar as Blackbaud downplayed the incident and led its customers to believe that notification was not required.
Blackbaud has agreed to strengthen its data security and breach notification practices going forward, including:
- Prohibition against misrepresentations related to the processing, storing, and safeguarding of personal information; the likelihood that personal information affected by a security incident may be subject to further disclosure or misuse; and breach notification requirements under state law and HIPAA.
- Implementation and maintenance of incident and breach response plans to prepare for and more appropriately respond to future security incidents and breaches.
- Breach notification provisions that require Blackbaud to provide appropriate assistance to its customers and support customers’ compliance with applicable notification requirements in the event of a breach.
- Security incident reporting to the CEO and Board, enhanced employee training, and appropriate resources and support for cybersecurity.
- Personal information safeguards and controls requiring total database encryption and dark web monitoring.
- Specific security requirements with respect to network segmentation, patch management, intrusion detection, firewalls, access controls, logging and monitoring, and penetration testing.
- Third-party assessments of Blackbaud’s compliance with the settlement for 7 years.