HONOLULU, Hawaii–HawaiiUSA FCU has been hit with a potential class action lawsuit over a data breach earlier this year.
The law firm Console & Associates is now seeking plaintiffs to join the proposed class action in which a member is alleging the credit union failed to alert members for months about the data breach.
In April of this year, the $2.3-billion credit union disclosed that personal information for approximately 20,000 members had been exposed in December of 2022.
“An investigation into a recent cybersecurity issue in which an unauthorized entity gained access to an employee’s email account has been concluded, as stated in a filing with the Attorney General of Maine made by HawaiiUSA,” Console & Associates said. “On December 12, 2022, HawaiiUSA became aware of the problem, prompting the corporation to launch an inquiry with the help of a cybersecurity firm.
Employee Email Allegedly Compromised
“According to the findings of the HawaiiUSA investigation, the employee’s email account was compromised as a result of a successful social engineering attack,” the law firm continued. “According to the findings of the investigation, the unauthorized third party also gained access to the personal data of some clients. HawaiiUSA Federal Credit Union examined the affected files after learning that sensitive customer data had been made available to an unauthorized party. The credit union is still working to identify the affected members and the specific details of the breach. On March 15, 2023, HawaiiUSA finalized this procedure. Information such as names, financial account details, and Social Security numbers may have been compromised, albeit the exact details vary on the individual.”
Console & Associates said breach letters were sent out by HawaiiUSA FCU on April 7, 2023, to everyone whose personal information was exposed in the leak.
‘Free Consultations’
Console & Associates said in its statement it is now offering free consultations to help those potentially affected “figure out what to do next, find out what safeguards exist, and figure out if you have grounds to sue HawaiiUSA for financial compensation following a data breach.”
HawaiiUSA FCU has more than 132,000 members.
Are You Missing the News? We Can Help. For Free!
Are you missing out on the latest news in credit unions? Missing the trends and developments you need to be aware of? We can help. Each morning CUToday.info delivers its daily Fresh Today news update offering the latest headlines and breaking news right to your email, with the easy-to-read headlines format allowing you to click on the stories that interest you most in order to learn more.
And it’s free!
If you haven’t yet signed up for the new email solution on which CUToday.info has partnered with ResponseGenius, you can do so here. Signing up requires less than one minute of your time—and it’s free!
Please note that after signing up you may need to go to your Spam/Junk folder and mark the morning headlines email as safe. CUToday.info does not provide its list of readers and emails to outside parties, and we will not be contacting you to sell you an extended warranty or sending you any links so you may cash in on an inheritance you didn’t know was coming.
And did we mention it’s free?
Please note and/or make your IT department or email administrator aware the emails will be coming from the domains CUTodayinfo.com and CUTodayinfoReply.com