96Fidelity National Financial and subsidiary LoanCare face several legal actions following a November cyberattack, with the majority seeking class action status for alleged failure to safeguard customers' personal information, exposed in the breach affecting over 1.3 million individuals.
One lawsuit filed in Florida by Ryan Turizo accuses the companies of recklessness in protecting customer data. The complaint says it "inexcusably delayed disclosing and providing notice of the Data Breach to their customers."
Although Fidelity disclosed the incident on November 19, 2023, LoanCare customers were not informed until around December 22, 2023.
The cyberattack, claimed by ransomware group Alphv/Blackcat, impacted Fidelity's title insurance, escrow services, mortgage transaction services, and technology for the real estate and mortgage sectors. LoanCare's customer data, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and loan numbers, was also accessed.
At the time, ALPHV/BlackCat published few details about what they allegedly accessed, but called out incident response specialist Mandiant's slow response to the attack. BlackCat granted FNF more time to respond or risk having more information about the attack revealed. "Wouldn't want to disclose every card at this early stage," the group wrote.
When asked for a response to the accusation, Mandiant declined to comment.
"As a consequence of the Data Breach, Plaintiff has been forced to and will continue to invest significant time monitoring his accounts to detect and reduce the consequences of likely identity fraud," the Turizo complaint states.
The lawsuit accuses both companies of negligence, common law invasion of privacy, and violating the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Another class action lawsuit originally filed in state court in Florida by Christi Horn says the breach of Fidelity delayed the closing of her home.
The original closing date was Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, but because the title system was down and the escrow funds were frozen she had no alternative but to wait until Dec. 5, 2023.
Horan is seeking monetary damages due to the financial harm caused by the delayed closing and the associated costs.
Fidelity and LoanCare have responded by offering 24 months of identity theft protection services to affected individuals.
Fidelity did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
