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Response snapshot Nov 3, 2026, 09:11 UTC

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Disclosed incidenthibp-harvard

Harvard breach: 850,537 accounts exposed

In November 2025, Harvard University suffered a data breach later linked to a ShinyHunters "pay or leak" extortion attempt .

At a glance

Sources
2 independent sources

What to do

If you or your organization used this service, change reused passwords, watch for phishing that uses the exposed data, and check the disclosure for the organization's guidance.

Read Have I Been Pwned: Harvard (opens a new tab)

What happened

In November 2025, Harvard University suffered a data breach later linked to a ShinyHunters "pay or leak" extortion attempt . The data contained 851k unique email addresses relating to the university's alumni and fundraising systems, along with extensive profile information for donors, alumni, parents and some faculty, staff and students.

Related technology

Sources

  1. Primary source

    Have I Been Pwned: Harvard (opens a new tab)

    Verified breach loaded into Have I Been Pwned: account count, exposed data types, and dates.

    Published Checked

  2. Primary source

    Harvard disclosure (opens a new tab)

    The organization's own breach disclosure, as linked by Have I Been Pwned.

    Published Date not suppliedChecked

  3. Primary source

    Have I Been Pwned breach API (opens a new tab)

    The breach list that supplied this entry.

    Published Date not suppliedChecked

Cite this record

For factual claims, cite the primary sources above; cite KEVWire for its compilation, dates, and classifications.

APA

KEVWire. (2026, November 3). Harvard breach: 850,537 accounts exposed. https://kevwire.com/record/hibp-harvard

MLA

"Harvard breach: 850,537 accounts exposed." KEVWire, 3 Nov. 2026, kevwire.com/record/hibp-harvard.

Chicago

KEVWire. "Harvard breach: 850,537 accounts exposed." Last modified November 3, 2026. https://kevwire.com/record/hibp-harvard.

Evidence summary (plain text)

Harvard breach: 850,537 accounts exposed (Nov 3, 2026).
In November 2025, Harvard University suffered a data breach later linked to a ShinyHunters "pay or leak" extortion attempt . The data contained 851k unique email addresses relating to the university's alumni and fundraising systems, along with extensive profile information for donors, alumni, parents and some faculty, staff and students.
Sources:
Have I Been Pwned: Harvard: https://haveibeenpwned.com/Breach/Harvard
Harvard disclosure: https://www.huit.harvard.edu/news/2025/11/recent-cybersecurity-incident-information-and-faq
Have I Been Pwned breach API: https://haveibeenpwned.com/api/v3/breaches
Record ID: hibp-harvard.
Record origin: Ingested record.
AI evidence: Not assessed.
About this data

This record was ingested from a data source. Retrieved: Nov 3, 2026, 08:20 UTC. Ingestion is not an independent editorial investigation.

Verified by Have I Been Pwned. Breach date: 2025-11-18; loaded 2026-11-03. Exposed data: Charitable donations, Citizenship statuses, Dates of birth, Education levels, Email addresses, Employers, Ethnicities, Family members' names, Genders, Job titles, Marital statuses, Names, Occupations, Phone numbers, Physical addresses, Places of birth, Salutations, Social media profiles. Counts are accounts in the loaded data, not necessarily distinct people.

Technology tags indicate possible relevance, not verified exposure. Confirm the affected product, version, and configuration against your own inventory; KEVWire does not scan your systems.

A personal reading checklist on this device, not verified remediation.

Record JSON

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Record details

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