P.F. Chang’s Victim of Data Breach

Seattle, WAWith each day bringing new reports of data breach cases and hackers gaining access to confidential information, P.F. Chang’s has announced that it, too, was a victim of a data breach. Meanwhile, lawsuits are being filed against companies accused of not properly protecting customer and client information from hackers and thieves.

In June 2014, P.F. Chang’s announced that it was victim of a data breach involving customer credit cards and debit cards. More recently, the company said that 33 of its locations were affected by the data breach, although it was not clear if specific customer information was stolen. According to The Wall Street Journal (8/4/14), identity protection services are being offered to customers, whose names, card numbers and card expiration dates may have been stolen.

Meanwhile, a lawsuit has been filed against Rady Children’s Hospital by a mother who says her daughter’s sensitive information was among the information of 20,000 patients whose medical records were accidentally sent to job applicants. ABC News 10 (8/14/14) reports that after the mother learned about the information breach a letter was sent to her daughter from a company they did not know addressing her health problems. The hospital has said that no addresses were among the information accidentally given out.

A lawsuit has also been filed against eBay (Green v. eBay, case number 2:14-cv-01688-SM-KWR US District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana) alleging that in 2014, eBay was subject to a data breach during which the thieves had access to, at a minimum, customer names, passwords, e-mail addresses, street addresses, phone numbers and birth dates. According to court documents, the breach occurred in February and/or March, but customers were not notified until May 21.

Furthermore, the lawsuit alleges that when eBay informed customers of the breach it only told customers to change their passwords but did not warn them that they were at risk of identity fraud.

“The security breach was the result of eBay’s inadequate security in regard to protecting identity information of its millions of customers,” the filing alleges. “eBay’s failure to properly secure this information has caused, and is continuing to cause, damage to its customers.”

The lawsuit alleges that the information accessed by thieves can be used to drain a bank account, run up charges on credit cards, open utility accounts, get medical treatment, obtain a tax refund or be given to police during an arrest.