BEF Donation Site Experiences Cyber Attack - All Accounts Secure, No Data Compromised

On Sunday, July 7, the Berkley Education Foundation discovered a large number of donations had appeared on their donation site. Upon further investigation, the donations were nearly all failing. The BEF staff notified OneCause, the company that handles all BEF online donations, of the odd donations soon after the discovery. The BEF has been working with OneCause and First American, the credit card processing handler that works with OneCause, ever since.

The good news is that this fraudulent activity has not impacted any BEF supporters and donors and OneCause has no reason to believe any information has been put at risk.

OneCause and First American believe what happened was called “card tumbling.” Card tumbling is an act where credit card numbers are stolen and obtained by fraudulent sources and used to check if random and stolen credit card numbers are still active and can be utilized in malice. These are often tested on non-profit donation sites and unfortunately, the BEF site was used for this. Any donations that did successfully process are being refunded, and the BEF is not being held liable for any transaction fees that were incurred.

OneCause also reported this incident to the Secret Service Field Office to ensure a report is being written for this fraudulent activity.

Any questions regarding this breech should be directed to OneCause: 888-418-0983.