Impact & Downstream Threats
This breach carries critical risk due to the nature of exposed data fields and the scale of affected records.
- Identity theft and synthetic identity construction using government-issued IDs
- Identity verification bypass using name + date of birth combination
- SIM swap attacks where phone numbers are present
- Targeted phishing campaigns using exposed email addresses
- Doxxing risk from physical address exposure
- Employment-based social engineering using job and employer data
Breach Intelligence
Executive Summary
In December 2020, the University of California suffered a data breach due to vulnerability in in a third-party provider, Accellion. The breach exposed extensive personal data on both students and staff including 547 thousand unique email addresses, names, dates of birth, genders, social security numbers, ethnicities and other academic related data attributes. Further analysis is available in Exploring the Impact of the UC Data Breach. The data was provided to HIBP courtesy of Cyril Gorlla.
About University of California
Public university system in California.
Data Points Exposed
Dark Web Verification
Status: Confirmed
- Dataset containing approximately 547K records identified in breach intelligence sources.
- The data is indexed and searchable across breach notification platforms.
Recommended Actions
⚠️ Do not assume this is low sensitivity.
Non-clients may request a breach impact review.
Frequently Asked Questions
In December 2020, University of California experienced a data breach that exposed approximately 547K records containing personal information.
The exposed data includes fields such as date of birth, education information, email address, ethnicity or race:ethnicity, full name.
Approximately 547K records were affected based on current breach intelligence.
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- A public-facing individual
- A high-profile executive
- A customer of University of California
- Or concerned about credential reuse
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