Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles Facing Another Class Action Over Lengthy 2022 Cyberattack

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Another proposed class action lawsuit claims negligence on the part of the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) is to blame for a data breach that went undetected for almost a full year.

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The 39-page lawsuit says that although the public agency discovered unusual activity in its computer systems in late December 2022, a subsequent investigation revealed that certain servers had been accessed by unauthorized third parties from January 15 to December 31, 2022.

The complaint relays that the personal information compromised in the breach included, without limitation, applicants’ full names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, passport numbers, driver’s license or state ID numbers, tax ID numbers, government-issued ID numbers, military ID numbers, credit or debit card details, financial account numbers and health insurance and medical information.

Per the suit, notorious ransomware gang LockBit claimed responsibility for the cyberattack and uploaded a sample of the stolen files on the dark web, threatening to post all the data on January 27, 2023 if its ransom demands were not met. According to the case, HACLA denied the hackers’ demands.

The filing argues that HACLA, which provides affordable housing to low-income individuals and families in Los Angeles, was well aware that cybercriminals often targeted the kind of private information it stored. In spite of this, the agency failed to implement proper data security measures and adequately monitor its network for unauthorized access, the lawsuit charges.

What’s more, the defendant waited to notify victims of the breach until March 2023, months after it had purportedly discovered the ransomware attack, the suit contends. As the case tells it, the notices did not disclose how many individuals were impacted, leaving many to speculate whether their information had been exposed to cybercriminals.

The plaintiff, an applicant for housing with HACLA, claims that since the breach he has experienced fraudulent credit card activity on several of his bank accounts and received numerous notifications that third parties have attempted to gain access to personal accounts, such as social media profiles. The man has also noticed an “exponential increase” in texts, calls and emails from spammers, the complaint says.

Like other victims, the plaintiff now faces a “never-ending threat of identity theft, phishing scams, threats, extortion, bullying and harassment” as a result of HACLA’s negligence, the filing claims.

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone in the United States whose personal information was accessed, compromised or stolen in the data breach discovered by HACLA on December 31, 2022.

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