Ally Bank facing two class-action lawsuits stemming from alleged data breach

CHARLOTTE ( QUEEN CITY NEWS ) — A major bank with ties to the Queen City is facing two class action lawsuits following a data breach.

The first lawsuit was filed in North Carolina Federal Court on Saturday. The second was filed on Monday. Both lawsuits claim Ally Bank was negligent in protecting hundreds of customers’ private information.

In the lawsuit filed in court Saturday, the plaintiff Sebastian Owens, as well as other class members said Ally Bank admitted that an unauthorized actor accessed personal information from its network.

Court documents say the breach was a direct result of Ally’s failure to implement adequate and reasonable cyber-security procedures and protocols necessary to protect individuals’ private information like names and social security numbers.

As a result of the data breach, the lawsuit says the plaintiffs and class members are having to closely monitor their financial accounts in case of identity theft or fraud.

In the class action lawsuit filed Monday in North Carolina Federal Court the plaintiff, Robert Hamilton, as well as other class members, also accuse Ally Bank of failing to properly secure and safeguard personal information following a data breach that happened on an undisclosed date.

Court documents say Hamilton was notified of the breach on August 30.

The lawsuit claims that Ally Bank could have prevented the data breach by properly encrypting or protecting its systems that obtain private information.

Charlotte cyber security expert Katie Florian says while companies and organizations are also victims when a breach happens, they have a legal responsibility to protect consumers’ personal information.

“You should be expecting that someone is going to try to steal that data because people’s personal information is valuable.  When you are expecting that to happen, if you are not consistently looking at your plan that you have in place, re-organizing, rebuilding, and testing and assessing, and putting better measures in place, you are more vulnerable,” Florian said.

Under the Federal Trade Commission’s Safeguard Rules , companies are required to protect against unauthorized threats and ensure the security of confidentially of customer information.

Florian says that can mean email security, encrypting data, and information customers when a breach happens within 30 days

In both lawsuits, plaintiffs are asking for Ally to pay monetary relief and are demanding a jury trial.

QCN reached out to Ally Bank regarding the lawsuit and did not get a response by deadline.

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