Class Action Lawsuit Claims Ex-University of Michigan Football Coach Hacked Private Student Athlete Accounts

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Former University of Michigan assistant football coach Matthew Weiss faces a proposed class action lawsuit filed a day after his indictment for allegedly hacking the private accounts of thousands of student athletes.

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The 52-page complaint claims that between approximately 2015 and January 2023, Weiss, 42, illegally accessed student athlete databases at more than 100 colleges and universities.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, Weiss downloaded the personally identifiable information and medical data of more than 150,000 student-athletes. Using stored passwords and personal information, Weiss infiltrated the social media, email and cloud storage accounts of around 3,300 people, the case alleges.

The filing claims that Weiss, formerly the co-offensive coordinator at Michigan, specifically targeted female college athletes and alumni to download their private and intimate photographs and videos.

The class action lawsuit was filed one day after Weiss was indicted on 14 counts of unauthorized access to computers and 10 counts of aggravated identity theft. If convicted on all charges, Weiss could face up to 90 years in prison.

Named as co-defendants in the class action are the University of Michigan, its Board of Regents and software company Keffer Development Services, all of whom the suit claims failed to monitor Weiss’ activity and negligently handled private student data.

“The information that the Non-Individual Defendants permitted Weiss to obtain is highly private, secretive, embarrassing when shared without authorization, and humiliating to become public without authorization,” the filing says.

According to the case, Weiss infiltrated Keffer’s “unsecured” databases and downloaded “poorly encrypted” passwords used by athletes to access its computer system. The ex-football coach also researched targeted athletes using open-source and internet resources to obtain additional personal details, such as their mothers’ maiden names, pets, places of birth, and nicknames, the filing says. The complaint says Weiss was able to guess or reset account passwords using this combined information.

“Hundreds if not thousands of students still face harm because, despite notice from decades of athlete department complaints and abuse, and widely known social media stockpiles of information that beg for safekeeping, Keffer, the Regents and the University have failed again and again to undertake any review of how [the plaintiffs’] private and personal information is stored, maintained, and who can access such information, and from where,” the case stresses.

The University of Michigan hacking lawsuit looks to represent all individuals whose personal information, images, data, social media or videos were accessed by Weiss without authorization.

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