UnitedHealthcare Services Sued for MOVEit Transfer Data Breach
A class action lawsuit has been filed against the student healthcare insurer UnitedHealthcare Services, which does business as UnitedHealthcare Student Resources, over its MOVEit Transfer data breach in May 2023. The lawsuit names Kelly Abramowitz as the plaintiff and alleges the health insurer failed to implement appropriate security measures to ensure the protected health information of plan members’ data.
Hundreds of organizations fell victim to the attacks, which mass exploited a zero-day vulnerability in Progress Software’s MOVEit Transfer file transfer solution. Progress Software released a patch to fix the vulnerability on May 31, 2023; however, the Clop ransomware group had already exploited the vulnerability and exfiltrated sensitive data. Ransom demands were issued, and payment was required to prevent the publication of stolen data on the group’s data leak site.
The attack on UnitedHealthcare resulted in the theft of names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, plan identification numbers, student identification numbers, healthcare information, claims information, Social Security numbers, other national identification numbers, and other sensitive data. Affected students were notified about the attack in July 2023 and were offered complimentary credit monitoring and identity theft protection services.
The lawsuit alleges UnitedHealthcare owed a duty of care to its members and should have maintained adequate safeguards to protect the information it collected and stored yet failed to do so, then delayed sending notification letters to the affected individuals. The lawsuit claims the plaintiff and class members have suffered irreparable harm from the theft of their sensitive information and now face an imminent and ongoing risk of identity theft and fraud.
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The lawsuit alleges negligence, negligence per se, unjust enrichment, and breach of implied contract and seeks class action status, a jury trial, declaratory and injunctive relief, and statuary damages. The lawsuit – Abramowitz v. United Healthcare Services Inc. d/b/a UnitedHealthcare Student Resources – was filed in the District Court for the District of Minnesota. The plaintiff and class members are represented by Nathaniel J. Weimer of Tewksbury & Kerfeld, P.A., and Mark S. Reich, Courtney Maccarone, and Gary S. Ishimoto of Levi & Korsinsky, LLP.
