Data breaches continue to stay in the news following the Anthem breach. (For more on the Anthem breach, see our previous posts here, here and here.) Below are some of the more relevant and interesting bits of data breach news from the past week.
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“Electronic filing and data breaches contribute to huge spike in tax fraud” from Kent State’s WKSU News
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“2014 Dubbed 'Year of the Data Breach,' But There's no Slow-Down in Sight for 2015” from the Credit Union Journal
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“New Study Says Over 2 Million Americans Are Victims Of Medical Identity Theft” from Forbes
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“Watch out for tax identity theft” from Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine — a warning that offers broad guidance to consumers after the recent rash of data breaches
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“Home Depot data breach court battle will unfold between May and August” from the Atlanta Business Chronicle
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“JPMorgan Chase hiring military vets to bolster cyber security” from Columbus Business First
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Apropos of our recent blog entry about what lawmakers might do in the wake of the rash of data breaches, SC Magazine has this piece on Senator Robert Menendez’s (D-NJ) push to reintroduce “legislation that would protect both consumers and retailers from data breaches”
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“LinkedIn Settles Class-Action Suit Over Weak Password Security” from The New York Times
As we’ve previously discussed, data breach may be the next frontier for class action lawsuits. Judging by early returns of the data breach suits filed, hospitals seem to be among the businesses at greatest risk for a data breach class action.
Case in point: The University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center is now subject to a class action lawsuit after the personal and medical information of approximately 2,400 of its patients was subject to a security breach.
Hospitals aren’t the only businesses at risk. Retail giant Target has been the subject of a high-profile lawsuit on the heels of a breach of the company’s credit and debit card information in November 2013. The company recently reasserted a previously filed motion to dismiss the case with the following argument: “Target argues that the consumers whose banking and credit information was compromised during last year’s data breach failed to provide evidence that any fraudulent charges on their accounts could be traced back to the original Target data breach event.”
