Breach, Data Security

Southern Baptist Convention IMB suffers data breach

Updated!! The Southern Baptist Convention's (SBC) International Mission Board suffered a data breach earlier this year exposing the personally identifiable information on its current and former employees, volunteers and applicants.

The SBC, which is composed of 47,500 Baptist churches and another 4,500 mission churches, has begun sending out notifications on July 6 to those affected which states the organization's IT department, the IMB said in a statement. The Biblical Recorder reported it had obtained the letter sent by the SBC warning that unusual network activity was noted on April 11 resulting in law enforcement and an outside forensic investigation team to be called in.

The researchers found that an unknown external actor gained access to the names, addresses, birth dates, contact information, Social Security numbers and limited health information on an unstated number of SBC members. The attackers did not gain access to the IMB's financial systems, email systems or operational records, the IMB said.

"The security issue has been resolved and, although there have been no reports to-date of the misuse of anyone's data as a result of this incident, out of an abundance of caution, we are offering free support services – including credit monitoring and identity protection – to anyone whose personal data may have been impacted," the IMB said.

Updated with direct information from IMB.

Get daily email updates

SC Media's daily must-read of the most current and pressing daily news

By clicking the Subscribe button below, you agree to SC Media Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.