Poultry Company Peco Foods Facing Class Action Lawsuit Over Data Breach Affecting 48K People

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A proposed class action lawsuit claims lax cybersecurity on the part of poultry producer Peco Foods caused a December 2023 data breach that reportedly exposed the personal information of more than 48,000 people.

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According to the 47-page data breach lawsuit, an unauthorized third party gained access to certain data stored within the Alabama-based company’s network around December 4, 2023. The filing says Peco Foods is the eight-largest poultry producer in the United States, and maintains plants and offices in Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi.

Reports relay that the Peco Foods cyberattack was perpetrated by a ransomware gang known as Black Basta, which claimed to have stolen 510 gigabytes of data during the breach. Per the suit, the hacker group has since threatened to leak the information to the public.

While Peco has yet to disclose what types of data were compromised during the incident, the case contends that the impacted information may include the kinds of data an employer may maintain for employees, such as names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, federal or state ID numbers, financial information, contact details and more.

The complaint alleges that although Peco had a legal obligation to safeguard the private information in its care, the company negligently failed to implement reasonable data security protocols to protect its computer systems from unauthorized intrusion. As the filing tells it, the sensitive information was purportedly stored unencrypted and vulnerable in the defendant’s network.

The lawsuit charges that Peco’s alleged negligence is compounded by repeated warnings to secure sensitive data against the growing number of cyberattacks in recent years. Despite the “foreseeable risk” of such an incident, the defendant failed to take proper precautions and adequately strengthen its cybersecurity, the suit asserts.

According to the case, Peco began notifying victims about the breach on or around June 24 of this year but has yet to share details about how cybercriminals gained access to its network or what steps are being taken to prevent such an incident from occurring in the future.

The Peco Foods data breach lawsuit looks to represent anyone in the United States and its territories whose private information was compromised during the cyberattack, including those who received notice of the incident.

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