On Monday, July 08, and as we returned to our offices for the week ahead, we learned that YWCA Canada’s server was hacked. So far, we understand that this happened on Saturday, July 6th, at 3 AM.

Our IT team has taken the necessary steps to secure our system, and we believe that data has been compromised.

I want to personally apologize to you for this breach, as our server hosts information about our donors.

Our donor information includes personal data like name and address, email, phone number and gift amounts. As it has been our practice to hold all donors’ financial information in an encrypted database, no financial information was compromised. That means no credit card numbers or other sensitive data was involved.

I want to emphasize how sorry we are, as you have trusted your data with YWCA Canada. I have notified the Office of the Privacy Commissioner in Canada, and we are currently doing a full investigation on the breach. We will take all necessary additional actions to rectify the situation.

We have already enhanced our firewalls and are putting in place new data encryption protocols.

Do not hesitate to reach out to me, if you have further questions or concerns, my direct email is mayaroy@ywcacanada.ca or call 416 962 8881 ext. 230 for details.

Maya Roy

CEO – YWCA Canada