Gifted Healthcare Data Breach Class Action Says Nurse Staffing Co.’s Email Systems Were Hacked Last Year

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Gifted Healthcare faces a proposed class action over a 2021 data breach during which the nationwide nurse staffing company’s email systems were hacked by unknown parties, causing the personally identifiable information of thousands of prospective, current and former employees to be accessed without authorization. 

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The 53-page lawsuit says the Metairie, Louisiana company’s email systems were hacked between August 25 and December 10, 2021, exposing the personal information of roughly 13,770 people. The suit says names, Social Security numbers, and financial account information was exposed during the incident. 

According to the complaint, victims of the Gifted Healthcare data breach have had to deal with the misuse of their personal information and fraudulent activity, including false attempts to open bank accounts, decreased credit scores, and monetary damages associated with mitigating the fallout from the incident. 

“Plaintiff and the Class also now [and] forever face an amplified risk of further misuse, fraud, and identity theft due to their sensitive Personal Information falling into the hands of cybercriminals as a result of the tortious conduct of Defendant,” the lawsuit reads. 

The plaintiff, who worked for Gifted Healthcare in Oklahoma City as a certified nursing assistant from November 2014 to August 2018, says she and other current and former employees were required to provide the company with sensitive personal information upon being hired, including checking and/or savings account details in order to get paid. Overall, Gifted Healthcare had in its care “a massive amount of said Personal Information of its employees,” and as a result assumed a legal responsibility to appropriately safeguard the data, the suit relays. 

According to the complaint, Gifted Healthcare began to send notice to data breach victims around August 24, 2022, stating it had “recently learned of suspicious activity related to an employee email account.” Although the company claimed to have no reason to believe the stolen information had been misused, it nevertheless offered complimentary credit monitoring and identity theft protection services, the filing says.

Per the case, “it is clear” from Gifted’s notice that it discovered the incident long before it reported the data breach to the Maine Attorney General’s office in July. 

As the lawsuit tells it, the data breach was preventable and “a direct result” of Gifted Healthcare’s failure to implement adequate and reasonable cybersecurity protocols.

The case looks to cover all individuals whose personal information was compromised as a result of the data breach that Gifted Healthcare announced on or around August 24, 2022. 

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