New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a lawsuit against National General and Allstate Insurance for failing to adequately protect the personal data of New Yorkers from cyberattacks. The lawsuit stems from a series of breaches that occurred in 2020 and 2021, which exposed the driver’s license numbers of over 165,000 individuals, including many New Yorkers. According to the complaint, National General’s security failures led to the breaches, which resulted in hackers gaining access to sensitive personal information. The lawsuit claims that National General’s negligence allowed for the attacks to take place, and after the initial breach, the company failed to take corrective actions, which enabled a second, larger breach to happen.
The first breach occurred in 2020 when attackers targeted National General’s online quoting websites, which were designed to automatically display consumers’ full driver’s license numbers in plain text.
The websites had weak protections, which allowed cybercriminals to exploit the flaw and gain access to sensitive data. Approximately 12,000 people, including over 9,000 New Yorkers, had their personal information exposed. National General failed to detect the breach for two months and did not notify the affected individuals in a timely manner. Instead, the company continued to leave driver’s license numbers exposed on another separate website that lacked adequate security measures.
This failure to act promptly set the stage for the second breach, which was much larger.
In the second breach, which occurred in February 2021, attackers targeted another vulnerable system, compromising the personal information of an additional 187,000 consumers, including roughly 155,000 New Yorkers. Following this second attack, National General did not provide the necessary notifications to consumers whose data had been compromised, nor did they inform the relevant state authorities. Allstate, which had acquired National General by that time, took over National General’s data security management. However, the complaint asserts that Allstate also failed to address the root causes of the security failures, leading to continued exposure of sensitive consumer data. The lawsuit alleges that National General and Allstate violated state laws by failing to secure the data properly, misrepresenting their data security practices, and neglecting to notify affected consumers of the breach.
Attorney General James is now seeking significant penalties for National General and Allstate, including fines and an injunction to prevent further violations. The lawsuit highlights the critical importance of ensuring robust cybersecurity measures to protect sensitive consumer data from unauthorized access and misuse. This legal action is part of a broader effort by James to hold companies accountable for poor data security practices. Earlier in 2024, she secured penalties from other companies like Noblr, GEICO, and Travelers Insurance, which faced similar issues with data breaches that compromised the personal information of many New Yorkers. James stressed the need for companies to take cybersecurity seriously to protect consumers from identity theft, fraud, and other forms of misuse of their private information.
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