Advance Auto Parts Data Breach Lawsuit Filed After Major 2024 Cyberattack

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

Advance Auto Parts faces a proposed class action lawsuit in the wake of a reported 2024 data breach believed to have impacted current and former employees and job applicants of the major automotive parts supplier. 

Get class action lawsuit news sent to your inbox – sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter here. 

The 41-page Advance Auto Parts data breach lawsuit relays that the company confirmed in a recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing that it had identified on May 23 of this year “unauthorized activity within a third-party cloud database environment” and quickly thereafter launched an investigation. On June 4, Advance said, a criminal threat actor offered for sale online what it claimed to be data stolen from the company, the case shares. 

Upon investigation of the stolen files, Advance, which runs more than 4,700 stores, believes the trove contains the personal information of current and former employees and job applicants, including Social Security numbers, the proposed class action says. 

The new data breach lawsuit accuses Advance of storing proposed class members’ sensitive data in a manner vulnerable to cyberattacks and falling short in its duty to safeguard the information it collects in the normal course of business. 

“By voluntarily undertaking the collection of this sensitive Private Information, Defendant assumed a duty to use due care to protect that information,” the case stresses, alleging the stolen data was kept in a database that was “negligently and/or recklessly configured,” thereby allowing the files therein to be accessed without a password or any kind of multifactor authentication. 

Per the complaint, the perpetrators “[f]oreseeably” exploited the “obvious vulnerability” in Advance’s database and then listed proposed class members’ data for sale on the dark web. As a result of the Advance Auto Parts data breach, victims now face a lifelong risk of identity theft and fraud, the suit states. 

Another proposed class action case filed over the Advance data breach claims the information of more than one million people was compromised in the incident, while two other similar suits say the data of roughly 358,000 current and former employees was exposed in the hack. 

The data breach lawsuit detailed here emphasizes that the data reportedly stolen in the Advance cyberattack is static, meaning it does not change, and can be used by cybercriminals to commit myriad financial crimes. 

In the wake of the cyberattack, Advance has “done little” to aid victims, offering only 24 months of “inadequate” identity theft monitoring services, even though consumers will face a risk of theft and fraud for their rest of their lives, the complaint relays. 

“What’s more, Defendant places the burden squarely on Plaintiff and Class Members by requiring them to expend time signing up for that service, as opposed to automatically enrolling all victims of this Data Breach,” the filing contests. 

The Advance Auto Parts data breach lawsuit looks to cover all individuals nationwide whose private information was actually or potentially accessed or acquired during the Advance Auto Parts data breach. 

Are you owed unclaimed settlement money? Check out our class action rebates page full of open class action settlements.