Kraemer Facing Class Action Over March 2023 Data Breach

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Construction engineering company Kraemer North America faces a proposed class action lawsuit that claims its “negligent” and “inadequate” data security are to blame for a March 2023 cyberattack.

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The 31-page lawsuit says Kraemer, a national heavy civil contractor based in Wisconsin, first noticed unusual activity on its computer systems on March 19. However, according to the company’s data breach notice, a subsequent investigation revealed that an unauthorized third party had infiltrated the network as early as March 14. The suit relays that the data compromised in the cyberattack included current and former employees’ names, addresses, Social Security numbers, bank account information, and driver’s license numbers or other government identification details.

The case argues that Kraemer’s deficient data security measures put employees’ private information in a “vulnerable position,” thereby making the company an “easy target[] for cybercriminals.”

“[Kraemer] had no effective means to prevent, detect, stop, or mitigate breaches of its systems,” the complaint alleges, adding that the company’s insufficient cybersecurity allowed hackers “unrestricted access” to the stored data.

What’s more, the defendant failed to notify victims of the breach until April of this year, more than a month after the incident commenced, the filing claims. As the lawsuit tells it, this delay prevented affected individuals from taking early steps to mitigate the harms caused by the exposure of their confidential information.

According to the suit, Kraemer has done little to provide relief to those impacted by the breach. Though it has offered credit monitoring services, the case contends that this gesture is wholly inadequate in the face of the lifelong risks of fraud and identity theft that victims now suffer.

The plaintiff, a Minnesota resident who worked for Kraemer between 2022 and 2023, received notice in April of this year that his personal information had been compromised in the breach, the complaint relays. The man claims that, since the incident, an unauthorized third party has attempted to fraudulently open numerous credit cards in his name. In addition, he has experienced a “flood of spam texts and phone calls,” and his credit score has reportedly plummeted from 620 to 380, the filing says.

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone in the United States whose personal information was compromised in the data breach announced by Kraemer in April 2023, including anyone who received notice of the breach.

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