Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College has received notice from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) of a cybersecurity issue involving a recent data breach affecting colleges, universities and other organizations.

In summary, the notice states:

The National Student Clearinghouse is notifying colleges of a cybersecurity issue related to a security vulnerability in the MOVEit Transfer tool, used by the Clearinghouse and many other organizations to transfer data files. Unauthorized actors discovered a vulnerability in the software that could allow unauthorized access to transferred files. The Clearinghouse has taken immediate action, including implementing patches and working with cybersecurity experts. NSC believes that certain files containing personal data maintained by the Clearinghouse on behalf of your organization may have been accessed by an unauthorized party. The Clearinghouse is conducting a review of the affected files and will provide additional information on the impact, including a list of individuals and the types of data affected.

MGCCC, like many higher education institutes across the country, reports student data/personally identifiable information to the Clearinghouse for financial aid compliance purposes and could be impacted by this event. At this time, it is not known if any data regarding MGCCC students was inappropriately accessed. This data security event did not impact MGCCC’s IT systems.

College leadership is monitoring the situation, will thoroughly assess any potential impacts to students and alumni when more information becomes available, and will provide updates as needed.

For more information from the Clearinghouse, visit https://alert.studentclearinghouse.org/ .