As reported by TopClassActions, Solara Medical Supplies has agreed to a $9.76 million class action settlement benefiting those whose personal information may have been compromised during a 2019 data breach that occurred between April 2 and June 20, 2019. That would include employees and patients whose protected health information was in employee email accounts compromised by a phishing attack.
A final hearing in the Solara Medical Supplies data breach settlement is scheduled for Sept. 12, 2022. The terms of the settlement can be found on the official settlement website.
Previous coverage of the incident on DataBreaches.net reported that Solara disclosed the incident in November 2019 as affecting more than 114,000 patients (as reported to HHS) plus employees. The settlement filing now provides more details on the types of information involved:
This lawsuit arises from the alleged compromise of personal identifying information (“PII”) and protected health information (“PHI”) by a medical products supplier that Plaintiffs allege is obligated by law to protect such information. In June 2019, Solara discovered that cyber criminals had accessed Solara’s Microsoft Office 365 accounts (the “Data Breach” or “Breach”). Thereafter, Solara conducted an investigation into the Data Breach, from which it learned that between April 2, 2019 and June 20, 2019, cyber criminals accessed certain Solara email accounts. Solara’s investigation confirmed that the accessed email accounts contained PII and PHI, including: 114,210 names; 105,681 dates of birth; 64,232 instances of billing/claims information; 92,852 instances of health insurance information; 115,747 instances of medical information; 374 instances of financial account information; 10,723 social security numbers; 217 driver’s licenses/state IDs; 37 instances of credit/debit card information; seven passwords/pins or account logins; 7,739 Medicare/Medicaid IDs; and two passport numbers.
Fraud claims in the litigation were amended in May, 2020.
As is usually the case in such settlements, Solara denies any wrongdoing or liability but “Taking into account the costs, burden, and uncertainty inherent in any litigation, however, Defendant has concluded that it is desirable and beneficial that the Action be fully and finally settled and terminated in the manner and upon the terms and conditions set forth in this Agreement.”