Equifax to pay up to $650 million in data breach settlement

July 24, 2019 By
Photo credit: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images file published in a report by NBC news on 7/22/19.

Photo credit: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images file published in a report by NBC news on 7/22/19.

“This company’s ineptitude, negligence, and lax security standards endangered the identities of half the U.S. population,” said the New York Attorney General in a statement reported by NBC news.

Reuters reports, “The largest-ever settlement for a data breach draws to close multiple probes into Equifax by the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Board, and nearly all state attorneys general. It also resolves pending class-action lawsuits against the company. Credit-reporting company Equifax will pay up to a record $650 million to settle federal and state probes into a massive 2017 data breach of personal information…”

Equifax is one of the three largest major credit-reporting companies; the company collects and aggregates information on over 800 million individual consumers and more than 88 million businesses worldwide. In 2017, the company made headlines when it disclosed that a data breach had compromised the personal information, including Social Security numbers, of 143 million Americans.

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Multibillion-dollar insurance corporation sued for data breach

June 3, 2019 By

photo-1555374018-13a8994ab246Insurance giant First American Financial faces a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, claiming the company “left more than 885 million sensitive documents dating as far back as 2003 exposed online,” Forbes.com reported on May 28.

“Now the company is facing a class action lawsuit for its apparent negligence. Gibbs Law Group LLP announced today that it is bringing the first nationwide class action lawsuit against the multibillion-dollar corporation,” the article reported.

The lawsuit was filed with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by David Gritz, a house flipper from Pennsylvania.

“First American was the title insurer for at least 11 of his housing transactions, according to the lawsuit,” Forbes.com reported. “The complaint suggests the members of the class affected by First American’s data exposure could be in the millions, and the lawsuit is seeking over $5 million.”

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Yahoo data-breach settlement filed for $117.5 million

April 17, 2019 By

YAHOO_headquartersA class action settlement for $117.5 million has been filed following data breaches affecting billions of Yahoo accounts.

The Recorder at law.com reports on the $117.5 million settlement, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California after a federal judge rejected an earlier preliminary approval.

“The settlement, filed Tuesday with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, includes a single fund from which $55 million would be available for out-of-pocket costs and $24 million in identity theft protection for class members (or $100 payments to those who already have credit monitoring),” The Recorder reported on April 9. “It also includes $30 million in attorney fees and $2.5 million in legal costs, a slight reduction from the original fee request.”

Data breaches in 2013 and 2014 accounted for more than 3 billion accounts that were hacked, according to Yahoo. Defendants include Altaba Inc., the division of Verizon formerly known as Yahoo.

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