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Ally Bank Faces Class Action Lawsuits After Cyber Attack
Sep 16, 2024
Ally Bank is under fire as two class action lawsuits claim negligence in protecting customer data after a cyber attack. Discover the implications for the bank and what this means for consumer data security in today's digital age. #CyberSecurity #AllyBank #DataBreach #ClassActionLawsuit #FinancialInstitutions #ConsumerProtection #CyberCrime #DataPrivacy #FTCRegulations #SmallBusinessRisks
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0:00
9:34 now a major bank with ties to the
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Queen City hit with not one but two
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class action lawsuits following an
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alleged Cyber attack the first filed in
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North Carolina Federal Court this past
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Saturday the other on Monday both
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lawsuits claiming Alli Bank was
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negligent in protecting hundreds of
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customers private information Queen City
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News Chief business correspondent Taylor
0:21
young has been combing through the court
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filings in tailor the lawsuits could set
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a major precedent for how companies
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handle these types of data breaches yeah
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you know every week it's seems that we
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are reporting on another company that
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was impacted by a Cyber attack and in
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many of these cases it's the private
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information of the company's customers
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or users that end up on the dark web now
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what we are seeing right now is a group
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of private citizens filing a lawsuit
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saying that this could have and should
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have been prevented an Ali Bank should
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be held responsible for the alleged
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breach now these two lawsuits filed
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within days of each other are very
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similar they recount a reported Cyber
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attack against al Bank One lawsuit
1:00
claims the bank found out about the
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breach in mid July the other on August
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1st now in both lawsuits the plaintiffs
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say their private information like names
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addresses phone numbers and Social
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Security numbers were accessed by an
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unauthorized actor AKA cyber criminals
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the class members in both cases alleg
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that allies should have known the risk
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that financial institutions face with
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the rise in cyber crime and that the
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bank failed to properly protect them I
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spoke with the Cyber uh cyber security
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expert in Charlotte who says while
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companies are also a victim when
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breaches like this happen they have the
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responsibility both ethically and
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legally to protect consumer's personal
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information you should be expecting that
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someone is going to try to steal that
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data because people's personal
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information is valuable When You're
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Expecting that to happen if you are not
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consistently taking a look at your plan
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that you have in place and reorganizing
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and rebuilding and testing and assessing
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and putting better measures in place you
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are more
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vulnerable now the L suit also accuses
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Alli Bank of failing to comply with the
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FTC guidelines both court filings are
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requesting that the bank pay impacted
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consumers now we did reach out to Alli
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Bank regarding the lawsuit and I have
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not heard back now we know Taylor that
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there are uh let's say we got two
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lawsuits on the table could allly also
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face potential fines from Regulators I
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mean it absolutely could so the FTC man
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dates that these companies protect their
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consumer data that's under the
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safeguards rule and what these
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requirements are is they include uh
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email security which is a big way that
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these companies do get hit that's we
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don't know if that's the case here but
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that is a massive um risk that companies
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have is with the emails that coming in
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out we get them here in the news room we
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know to avoid them also data encryption
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and then lastly letting uh impactors
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impacted customers know in a timely
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manner and of course failing to comply
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with these requirements um can lead to
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Hefty fines and lawsuits like the ones
3:00
that we're covering right now I mean
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these measures are there to protect data
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minimize risk and lastly I mean get
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businesses back up and running as
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quickly as possible but you know at the
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end of the day and I did speak with a
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cyber expert about this you cannot 100%
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prevent a data breach from happening we
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know these criminals are only getting
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smarter we see more and more companies
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being impacted by this the goal however
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is to maintain uh to minimize rather
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damage to your company and the customers
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if they are impacted and unfortunately
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cyber security experts say if companies
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are hit once the chances of it happening
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again uh rapidly increase and Taylor
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we've seen this time and time again
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major corporations targeted by cyber
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criminals how is this impacting some
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smaller businesses are they targets as
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well well we know that last year an
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estimated
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3,200 uh cyber attacks happened that's
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an 80% increase from just the year
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before and I think what is the most
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shocking uh data from all of this is
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that 50 % of those cyber attacks
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actually happened to small businesses
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and the Cyber expert that I spoke with
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she says with the small businesses that
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they work with many of them are actually
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unaware that they have to follow the
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same exact FTC guidelines that these big
4:13
corporations are dealing with so not
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only are they at a high risk of a Cyber
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attack but they could also be facing
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fines they could also be facing lawsuits
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if a breach does happen um so yeah I
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mean again both major corporations both
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small businesses is they all are
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vulnerable to these breaches and
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unfortunately it can lead to paying out
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a lot of money to people who are
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impacted but also to Regulators all
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right Taylor thank you some you don't
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think about the small businesses also
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impacted
#Computers & Electronics