The Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), one of ICL’s pension schemes, has reported a data breach to Imperial following a cyber incident at Capita which are one of their suppliers.

If you are or have been a member of the USS Pension Scheme then you will have received two emails regarding the situation, one to confirm the incident and the second to provide to a free Experian Identity Plus code for a 12month membership.  If you do not have an email address associated to your account then you will be / should already have received hard copy letters informing you of the same information. If you have received neither communication, please check your email junk / spam folder.

Colleagues are strongly advised to utilise the code in order to help understand and identify any potential risks resulting from the breach as it has been reported that the datafile which was breached contained 470,000 active, deferred and retired members from across the HE sector. The data included in the datafile includes;

• USS Member Number
• Title, Initial(s), Full name
• Date of Birth
• National Insurance Number (NI)

Whilst no contact details were contained in the datafile (address, phone numbers or email address etc.), it is important to be aware of the associated risks as data can be reused/combined with other public information and lead to increased likelihood of phishing emails/scam calls/misuse of your data occurring.

As a result of the breach, if you receive any communication that uses your NI, Date or Birth or USS numbers as verification then remember to confirm the sender carefully, either by checking their email address or calling them using an official contact number for the organisation. If you have any doubts about a communication then visit the associated website/service directly, but do not click links in the emails to get there.

For more guidance on what to look out for and what to do please see the following;

Imperial College London - Phishing and Malware

Phishing: Spot and report scam emails, texts, websites and... - NCSC.GOV.UK

If you have concerns about anything relating to NI or HMRC information you can always contact HMRC directly on 0300 200 3500 or via  HMRC online services - GOV.UK