Evening Post Publishing Data Breach Lawsuit Filed in South Carolina

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Evening Post Publishing faces a proposed class action lawsuit that alleges the newspaper and media company failed to protect the sensitive information in its care from a reported March 2024 data breach announced by the company this month.

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The 52-page Evening Post Publishing data breach lawsuit says the company, which runs at least nine papers in South Carolina along with other print and media entities, claims to have become aware of “suspicious activity” on its network on March 20 of this year. Further investigation determined that Evening Post Publishing’s network was hit by unauthorized access between March 13 and March 20, 2024, during which certain files containing personally identifiable information were taken by the unknown actor, the filing says.

According to the data breach lawsuit, names, Social Security numbers, financial and credit card details, and driver’s license and passport numbers were accessed during the Evening Post cyberattack.

On August 8, Evening Post issued a data breach notice in which it confirmed that proposed class members’ data was illegally accessed and stolen, the case states.

“Plaintiff’s and Class Members’ Private Information was then made available online, meaning their Private Information is exposed and has or likely will be used by cybercriminals for unlawful purposes,” the suit emphasizes, claiming data breach victims have incurred expenses related to mitigating the damage from the cyberattack.

The lawsuit accuses Evening Post Publishing of maintaining the stolen information in a “reckless and negligent manner,” namely within a computer system vulnerable to cyberattacks.

“Defendant did not use reasonable security procedures and practices appropriate to the nature of the sensitive, unencrypted information they were maintaining for Plaintiff and Class Members, causing the exposure of the Private Information,” the suit alleges.

The Evening Post data breach reportedly impacted more than 15,000 people. The company owns publications such as The Post and Courier, Aiken Standard, The Summerville Journal Scene and The Berkley Independent, among other properties.

The Evening Post Publishing data breach lawsuit looks to cover all individuals whose private information was actually or potentially accessed or acquired during the data breach that is the subject of the notice of data breach published by Evening Post on or around March 20, 2024.

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