Samsung was the victim of a cybersecurity breach in late July, which saw United States customers’ personal information exposed.
Customers’ names, contact information, demographic details, dates of birth and product registration information were compromised, Reuters reported. Social Security numbers and credit card numbers were not affected. It is unknown how many customers had been affected.
“We are investigating an incident involving some of our U.S. systems,” Samsung said in a statement to PYMNTS. “Upon discovery of this incident, we took action to secure the affected U.S. systems. We also engaged a leading outside cybersecurity firm and are coordinating with law enforcement. We remain committed to safeguarding the information of our customers and take these matters seriously.”
Data breaches have become common in recent years, particularly as the chaos surrounding the pandemic forced many facets of society to digitize quicker than they had anticipated.
In one such case, Cash App Investing and parent Block saw a data breach that compromised 8.2 million users’ personal information in Decmeber. There’s now a class action lawsuit brewing over the companies’ “negligent behavior.”
Read more: Cash App, Block Accused of Negligence in Class Action Over Breach
The breach happened because an ex-employee still had access to reports containing users’ full names and brokerage account numbers. An April filing by Block with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said the employee “had regular access to these reports as part of their past job responsibilities, in this instance these reports were accessed without permission after their employment ended.”
The accusation is that the employee was able to steal the data because of the companies’ inadequate security measures.
“While the exact reason(s) for the Data Breach remain unclear, there is no doubt that Defendants failed to adequately protect Plaintiffs’ and Class members’ Private Information and such negligent failures resulted in the injuries alleged herein,” the class action lawsuit stated.
Block added in the filing that the ex-employee had access to download the reports as part of the job, but the employee allegedly committed the crime after they had left the company.
Because of the data breach, the lawsuit alleges that victims now could see a higher risk of identity theft and fraud.
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