IOTW: American Bar Association accused of data breach affecting 1.4 million people

In a class action lawsuit, the American Bar Association (ABA) has been accused of “grossly fail[ing] to comply with security standards” and causing a data breach that affected approximately 1.5 million people.

The data breach, which occurred in March 2023, saw a malicious actor gain access to the ABA’s systems and steal the data of approximately 1.4 million members. The data stolen included personal information such as name, phone number, address and email address. The lawsuit also alleges that financial information was stolen during the breach.  

The plaintiff has accused the ABA of causing and enabling the data breach by “knowing[ly] violati[ng] of its obligations to abide by best practices and industry standards in protecting customers’ personal information”. They also claimed the ABA “grossly failed to comply with security standards... all in an effort to save money by cutting corners on security measures” that may have mitigated or prevented the breach.

The lawsuit goes on to accuse the ABA of failing to inform those affected of the breach both of the breach itself and the extent of it. This, it says, prevented those affected by the breach from adequately protecting themselves.

As of the time of writing, the ABA has not formally addressed the class action lawsuit.

Samsung faces class action lawsuit following data breach

In September 2022, Samsung was hit with a class action lawsuit following a data breach in July of that year, which saw the company’s US servers hacked and customer data accessed.

Samsung confirmed on August 4, 2022 that “name, contact and demographic information, date of birth and product registration information” may have been accessed by the hackers.

The lawsuit was filed with the US District Court for Nevada on September 6 by Shelby Harmer “on behalf of Samsung’s customers whose personally identifiable information was stolen by cybercriminals”. 

The lawsuit alleges that Samsung violated privacy and contract laws as well as failing to notify affected parties in a timely manner and safeguard customer’s personal and identifying information. The lawsuit also alleges that Harmer and all others who were affected by the breach “are currently at a very high risk of misuse of their private information”.

Harmer is suing Samsung for breach of contract, negligence and invasion of privacy, and is seeking certification of the class action lawsuit, a jury trial and damages, costs and fees.