Samsung Hit With 5th Class Action Over Summer’s Data Breach

By our count, a fifth federal class action has been brought in the past two weeks to hold Samsung to account for the data breach it disclosed Sept. 2 in public notices and in private emails to account holders in which the confidential personally identifiable information (PII) of millions of customers was exposed to hackers, including first and last names, dates of birth, postal addresses, precise geolocation data, email addresses and phone numbers. The latest complaint, filed Thursday (docket 1:22-cv-05767) in U.S. District Court in Camden, New Jersey, was brought by Joseph Rollins, a Browns Mills, New Jersey, resident, who bought a Samsung Galaxy S10 smartphone and was notified by Samsung that his PII “was among the confidential data that cybercriminals illegally accessed and stole from Samsung’s servers,” said his suit. Rollins “is very concerned about identity theft as well as the consequences of such identity theft and fraud resulting from the data breach,” said his complaint. Rollins has received “an increased number of phishing emails and spam telephone calls” since July, from entities including pharmacies, solar businesses and extended warranty companies, it said. July is when Samsung first became aware of the hack, it said in its Sept. 2 notifications, prompting virtually all the complainants to hold the company to task for waiting weeks before disclosing the data breach to the public. The five class-action suits were filed in various jurisdictions in New York and New Jersey.