Hackers successfully breached **Harvard University**'s Alumni Affairs and Development systems in November 2025, compromising data linked to over 850,000 unique email addresses. ### Breach Details Emerge The university, a prominent Ivy League institution with a vast network of students, alumni, faculty, and staff, initially discovered the breach on November 18, 2025. Attackers gained unauthorized access to a wide array of personal information, including email addresses, telephone numbers, home and business addresses, event attendance records, and detailed donation information. Biographical data pertinent to university fundraising and alumni engagement activities were also compromised. **Klara Jelinkova**, Harvard's Vice President and University Chief Information Officer (CIO), confirmed that the compromised systems did not house highly sensitive data such as Social Security numbers, passwords, payment card information, or other financial details. ### ShinyHunters Claims Responsibility While **Harvard** has not officially attributed the attack to a specific threat actor, the notorious **ShinyHunters** extortion gang claimed responsibility. The group asserted they stole over 1 million records containing identifiable information and donation data. Following **Harvard**'s refusal to pay a ransom, **ShinyHunters** leaked a 1.1GB archive of documents on their dark web leak site in early February. ### Have I Been Pwned Confirms Scale Breach notification service **Have I Been Pwned** analyzed the leaked data, confirming on Tuesday that the incident exposed information from 850,500 accounts. This dataset included names, email addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, physical addresses, and social media profiles. **Have I Been Pwned** noted the data contained "extensive profile information for donors, alumni, parents and some faculty, staff and students."  ### A Trend Among Ivy League Institutions This incident is not isolated. In November 2025, two other Ivy League schools, **Princeton University** and the **University of Pennsylvania**, also disclosed data breaches affecting their donor and alumni information. This suggests a potential coordinated effort targeting higher education institutions. Furthermore, **Harvard** itself faced another investigation in October 2025 concerning a separate data breach. The **Clop** ransomware gang claimed to have exploited an **Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS)** zero-day vulnerability to access the university's systems. Two months later, the **University of Phoenix (UoPX)** also reported a breach by **Clop** using the same **Oracle EBS** flaw, impacting nearly 3.5 million individuals.