25 July 2022

Service message from Lester McGrath, Executive Director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet. 

We have recently received reports from our email provider Wordfly that they have been subject to a cybersecurity incident. Wordfly is a major US-based system that is used by many arts organisations around the world, including New Zealand Opera and the Auckland Theatre Company.  

On Saturday 16 July, Wordfly advised their clients worldwide that email addresses and other non-sensitive data used to send emails via their platform may have been accessed. This is the only information the RNZB stores within the Wordfly system. Other sensitive information such as credit card details are not stored on Wordfly and have not been affected. 

Although there is currently no evidence that any of the data belonging to our supporters has been misused, we felt it important to release this statement out of an abundance of transparency, and because the privacy of our supporters is important to us. We are not advising anyone to take any action in response to this incident. We have submitted a report to the Privacy Commissioner regarding this issue. 

As already mentioned, and most importantly, we do not share financial information, passwords or purchase history with Wordfly. Wordfly is completely independent of our own systems, and none of the data relating to our ticketing software, website or online sales platform has been accessed. We take the privacy and security of the personal data shared with us very seriously; we safeguard it and have processes in place to always ensure its confidentiality.  

Although it is disappointing that this has happened, this type of event is unfortunately becoming increasingly common. We encourage everyone to familiarise themselves with steps you can take to improve your online safety. For tips and online safety advice we recommend viewing the NetSafe website (www.netsafe.org.nz) and the Privacy Commissioner’s resource on avoiding phishing email scams. 

Since the Wordfly system became inaccessible on 16 July we have been unable to send any large-scale email communications. Thankfully, we are now back up and running with a new email service provider, MailChimp. MailChimp is a long-established email service company, with an excellent security record. We have used their services previously, as have many of our colleagues in the arts and commercial sectors. 

If you have any concerns or questions, please contact our box office. 

Lester McGrath, 

Executive Director of the RNZB