Murphy, Falcon & Murphy filed a statewide class action lawsuit against LifeBridge Heath, Inc., a Baltimore healthcare provider, on behalf of more than 530,000 Maryland consumers whose personal information, social security numbers, birth dates, names, addresses, health insurance information, client treatment information, and medical diagnoses were stolen
BALTIMORE, Dec. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Yesterday, Murphy, Falcon & Murphy filed a statewide class action lawsuit against LifeBridge Heath, Inc. (“LifeBridge”), a Baltimore healthcare provider, on behalf of more than 530,000 Maryland consumers whose personal information, social security numbers, birth dates, names, addresses, health insurance information, client treatment information, and medical diagnoses were stolen. The data breach occurred on or about September 27, 2016.
Hackers accessed LifeBridge’s servers through one of its physician practices and installed malware on a server that hosted LifeBridge’s electronic medical records, patient registration, and billing systems. Unbelievably, LifeBridge failed to discover the data breach until approximately March 28, 2018—eighteen months later—allowing the cybercriminals to freely roam its systems during that lengthy period of time. LifeBridge then inexplicably waited nearly two months before disclosing the breach to its patients.
The hackers’ access was made possible because of LifeBridge’s failure to ensure the integrity of its servers and to properly safeguard patients’ highly sensitive and confidential information. Well before 2016, LifeBridge knew or should have known that failure to protect patients’ personal identifying information and health information from unauthorized access would result in a massive data breach, exposing their patients to serious harm. LifeBridge’s conduct also violated many privacy protection statutes, including the Maryland Personal Information Protection Act, the Maryland Social Security Number Privacy Act, and the Maryland Consumer Protection Act.
Hassan Murphy, Managing Partner at Murphy, Falcon & Murphy, said today, “LifeBridge’s failure to protect their patients’ information demonstrates a serious lack of judgment and oversight.” Murphy continued, “A health care data breach is devastating in a uniquely personal way. In addition to obtaining the victims’ valuable and sensitive personally identifiable information, cybercriminals also obtained information regarding these patients’ medical histories, diagnoses, and treatments. LifeBridge should have implemented appropriate and adequate technological safeguards to prevent such a massive cyberbreach from occurring, and certainly should have notified its patients immediately after learning of the breach.”
“This data breach has compromised every aspect of these patients’ personal identities and has subjected them to significant harm. We will continue working until LifeBridge fixes this problem and makes these victims whole,” Murphy added.
About Hassan Murphy & Murphy, Falcon & Murphy, P.A.
Hassan Murphy is currently a member of the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in In Re: Equifax, Inc., which is responsible for prosecuting the nationwide consumer data breach litigation against Equifax, Inc. Recently Murphy, Falcon & Murphy, P.A. filed the first class action lawsuit against Marriott International, Inc., for its recently disclosed data breach, which affects 500 million consumers.
Murphy, Falcon & Murphy, P.A. is a Baltimore-based law which specializes in complex civil, criminal and civil rights litigation. Our powerhouse legal team has a history of unrelenting dedication to its clients in Baltimore and across the country. Our team of seasoned trial lawyers have extensive experience in a wide variety of cases with success rates that dwarf national averages and are dedicated to providing smart strategies and creative approaches to complex litigation. We are driven and strategy-focused— characteristics that have helped us secure more than $700 million in verdicts and settlements, and our attorneys have won some of the largest verdicts in high-profile, high-stakes cases in some of the toughest jurisdictions around the country. Learn more at www.murphyfalcon.com.
*Each case is different. Past success does not guarantee a favorable result in any future case.
Contact: Hassan Murphy
Hassan.Murphy@murphyfalcon.com
(410) 539-6500
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