Anthem has agreed to pay $115 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over the 2015 data breach that compromised the personal information of nearly 80 million customers. If approved, the proposed settlement – which will be heard in a federal court next month – would be the largest ever in regards to data theft. The funds would be used to provide at least two years of credit monitoring for the cyber-attack victims. It would also cover victims’ out-of-pocket expenses incurred by the breach and provide cash compensation for those who are already enrolled in credit monitoring. In addition to the monetary compensation, Anthem would be required to guarantee a certain level of funding for information security. The company would also be required to implement or maintain various changes to its data security systems, such as encryption of certain information and archiving sensitive data with strict access controls, reported Data Breach Today. Eve Cervantez, co-lead counsel representing the plaintiffs in the Anthem litigation, said:
"After two years of intensive litigation and hard work by the parties, we are pleased that consumers who were affected by this data breach will be protected going forward and compensated for past losses.”
Following the massive data breach, over 100 lawsuits were filed against Anthem, which were then consolidated by a California judge. The compromised data appeared to include customer names, birthdays, Social Security numbers, addresses and email addresses, as well as employee info. Ne
