Boston’s Emmanuel College Hit with Class Action Over Data Breach Affecting 89K People

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Emmanuel College faces a proposed class action lawsuit after an April 2023 cyberattack against the private Boston university compromised the personal data of approximately 89,000 people.

Did you receive a data breach letter from Emmanuel College? Let us know here.

According to the Emmanuel College data breach notice, an unauthorized third party on April 27, 2023, accessed and exfiltrated certain files stored on the college’s network. The same day, the school tweeted that it was experiencing a system outage, reports say, and network services were purportedly starting to come back online by April 28.

The 31-page data breach lawsuit relays that the personal information compromised in the incident may have included full names, Social Security numbers, government identification details, financial account information and certain health insurance and medical data.

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The suit argues that despite the prevalence of cyberattacks in recent years, Emmanuel College failed to take adequate data security measures to protect the information in its care. The school could have prevented the incident had it properly encrypted its servers and the sensitive data stored therein, the case contends.

To make matters worse, although the cyberattack occurred in April of last year, the college waited until late January 2024 to begin notifying victims, the complaint says. Per the filing, the notice letter, which included only “basic details” about the incident, failed to explain how cybercriminals gained network access, what specific data was stolen and what steps are being taken to safeguard stored information in the future.

As such, victims have been left to wonder where their private data is now and for what “nefarious purposes” it has possibly been used, the case charges.

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone in the United States whose personal, medical and/or financial information was exposed to unauthorized third parties as a result of the data breach experienced by Emmanuel College on April 27, 2023.

Did you receive a data breach letter from Emmanuel College? Let us know here.