In approximately December 2019, an alleged data breach of the lawyer directory service Avvo was published to an online hacking forum and used in an extortion scam (it's possible the exposure dates back earlier than that). The data contained 4.1M unique email addresses alongside SHA-1 hashes, most likely representing user passwords.

The compromised data was shared in an online hacking forum. Four UMBC accounts were victims of this breach. The victims are being notified via their UMBC emails and/or their alternate emails. If you have an Avvo account, please contact them to see if you have been affected by this breach.

To see if you were involved in any other breach, visit: https://haveibeenpwned.com/.

More about Avvo data breach:

https://www.goincognito.co/alert-4101101-breached-accounts-at-avvo-check-your-email-now/

If you have any questions or concerns, email us at: security@umbc.edu.

Information about this breach was provided to us by Have I Been Pwned(HIBP). 

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Forward it to security@umbc.edu along with the email headers. For instructions, visit: https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970.

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