Nursing Program Accrediting Agency to Blame for February 2023 Data Breach, Class Action Alleges

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A proposed class action claims Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing, Inc. (ACEN) failed to protect the private data of around 11,980 individuals from a February 2023 cyberattack.

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The 59-page lawsuit says that the agency, a domestic and international accreditor of nursing education programs, learned on March 9 of this year that its computer systems had been breached when it received an email from an unknown sender who claimed to have gained access to the network. A subsequent investigation determined on June 12 that an unauthorized actor had indeed infiltrated certain ACEN servers between February 6 and 27, the suit relays.

According to the case, the data compromised in the cyberattack included individuals’ names and Social Security numbers.

The complaint argues that ACEN negligently failed to implement proper data security measures to safeguard the personal information maintained in its network.

Although the agency purportedly discovered the ransomware attack on March 9, it did not begin notifying victims until July, the filing shares. As the lawsuit tells it, this unreasonable delay prevented impacted individuals from taking early steps to mitigate the harm caused by the unauthorized disclosure of their private data.

The plaintiff, a South Carolina resident, graduated recently from the ACEN-accredited Jersey College School of Nursing, the suit explains. The woman received notice in July informing her that her personal information, which had been entrusted to ACEN by Jersey College, had been compromised in the breach, the case says.

Though the defendant has offered certain affected individuals 12 months of credit monitoring services, the complaint contests that the gesture is insufficient to protect victims from the lifelong risks of identity theft and fraud that they now face.

As a result of ACEN’s negligence, the filing charges, data thieves have obtained “everything they need to commit identity theft and wreak havoc on the financial and personal lives of thousands of individuals.”

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone in the United States whose personal information may have been accessed and/or acquired in the cyberattack that is the subject of the notice ACEN sent out in July 2023.

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