It may be the first, but I doubt it will be the last lawsuit filed. There’s nothing dramatically different about the complaint compared to other lawsuits in that there are no claims of concrete harms like fraudulent accounts, etc. The main claim is that the plaintiffs have spent time and money protecting themselves. The lawsuit includes claims of negligence, negligence per se, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary responsibility, and violations of NYS business law. The complaint also throws in a claim based on bailment (a claim that I don’t recall seeing in other lawsuits). As we’ve seen before, the complaint uses HIPAA to establish a standard that the defendants allegedly failed to meet.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the complaint, from my perspective, is the part concerning minor children whose information was caught up in the incident. You can’t get credit monitoring if you don’t have a credit history, so for minors under 18, what is Excellus really offering in the way of mitigation? Yes, the minors will have services through Kroll if something happens, but how would parents know that something has happened unless they undertake to routinely check with credit report firms, etc.
This problem is not unique to the Excellus breach, but it is an interesting point to raise.
Fraudulent activity on credit cards, 4 known, identity theft and orders made on our cards, shipped around the country and couldn’t figure what was going on.
Thanks for adding that. I didn’t see that in the complaint. Was that in there?
Crooks are buying the cards and shipping the products to hired unsuspecting mules. Krebs has a newer write up about the ways of the Russian crime ring that has caused much grief.
It is unacceptable for companies to just shrug it off as no big deal when something occurs like this. If they had to pay EACH victim $10,000, I would wager they would get proper security then, right?
I would certainly hope so!