DATA BREACH LAW
Take cybercrime seriously and get paid for the risks you're facing
DATA BREACH LAW
Take cybercrime seriously
DATA BREACH LAW
Data Breach Attorneys
Your identity is at risk in a data breach. You can lose your money, credit, job and your peace of mind. Cybercriminals don’t care. If your data is accessible, they’ll steal it and sell it. Then, they’ll open accounts in your name, get your tax refunds, ruin your credit, spam you and your friends. Cybercrime is no joke, and no one is immune to it.
You Can Get Paid
Even if a data breach didn’t cost you directly, you can GET PAID. Act fast or you will miss out on a claim potentially worth thousands of dollars since someone else will file first. Then, they get the legal representation, they get taken seriously and they can get paid. Don’t be left to worry about what’s next for your family. It just takes a couple of minutes.
NEWS FLASH
Were You Hacked?
Data Breach Attorneys
Your identity is at risk in a data breach. You can lose your money, credit, job and your peace of mind. Cybercriminals don’t care. If your data is accessible, they’ll steal it and sell it. Then, they’ll open accounts in your name, get your tax refunds, ruin your credit, spam you and your friends. Cybercrime is no joke, and no one is immune to it.
You Can Get Paid
Why are Data Breaches a Problem?
Statistics show a dramatic recent increase of hackers trying to acquire your data and personal information. They take it, use it to get credit in your name, access your accounts and trick your friends and family. If you don’t think your information is already in the hands of criminals, think again. That information will be used against you when you least expect it. Experts agree that data breaches are the #1 biggest threat to U.S. citizens and most companies are not prepared for data breaches.
Since 2005 (when most data breach reporting began), there have been well over 20,000 recorded breaches. At least 3,950 of those confirmed data breaches occurred in 2020 alone, with a cyberattack effort occurring in that year alone every 39 seconds. The vast majority of people in this country were the subjects of hacking via multiple data breaches. This is a reality which is getting worse every day, and consumer fears about their own data are at an all-time high. See, Gallup Poll and AAG.
If you use credit cards, browse online or purchase products on the internet, you are a prime target for cybercrime.
Your credit card numbers, bank accounts, security codes, email addresses, passwords and medical health records are not safe.
Data Breaches: Defined
A data breach is any incident where sensitive information has been accessed without permission. In other words, data breaches are the result of cyberattacks where criminals gain unauthorized access to computer networks. Once in, they steal the confidential personal and financial data of the customers or users stored there. The U.S. Department of Justice defines a breach as “the loss of control, compromise, unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized acquisition, access for an unauthorized purpose, or other unauthorized access, to data, whether physical or electronic.”
Our law firm believes data breaches don’t usually happen when companies maintain adequate cybersecurity. And yet, with the advent of AI security solutions, data breaches are more prevalent now than ever. In those situations, sometimes millions of consumers are hurt in just one attack. Once the cybercriminals are in the system, they can access:
- Customer or patient names
- Addresses
- Telephone numbers
- Email addresses
- Usernames
- Passwords
- Medical health records
- Credit Card numbers and security codes
- Banking and other financial information
How Do Data Breaches Occur?
A data breach occurs when a cybercriminal physically accesses a computer or network to steal local files, bypasses network security remotely, or uses phishing attacks or social engineering.
In a 2025 study by IBM, roughly 17% of organizations that experienced a data breach reported the breach was driven by AI. In other words, these data breaches were a combination of AI-generated phishing schemes on employees, or deepfake impersonations. One Verizon study warns that 71% of breaches are financially motivated and that ransomware accounts for nearly 24% of incidents where malware is used. This is a major concern since, at least, 36% of external data breach actors in 2019 were involved in organized crime. The most common cyberattacks used in data breaches are:
Ransomware
Ransomware is software that gains access to and locks down access to vital data. A fee is then demanded, commonly in the form of cryptocurrency. [more from Wikipedia]
Malware
Malware, also commonly referred to as “malicious software,” is a term that describes any program or code that harmfully probes systems. The malware is designed to harm your computer or software and commonly masquerades as a warning against harmful software. The “warning” attempts to convince users to download varying types of software and, while it does not damage the physical hardware of systems, it can steal, encrypt or hijack computer functions. Malware can penetrate your computer when you are navigating hacked websites, downloading infected files or opening emails from a device that lacks anti-malware security. [more from Wikipedia]
Phishing
Phishing scams involve sending fraudulent emails that appear to be from reputable sources or companies, with the goal of deceiving recipients into either clicking on malicious links or downloading infected attachments. In most cases, this is to steal financial or other confidential information. From IBM’s 2025 survey, 16% of the attacks on surveyed companies were from phishing scams. [more from Wikipedia]
Denial of Service (DoS)
A Denial of Service is a cyberattack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users. They do this by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to the Internet. Typically,, this is accomplished by flooding the targeted machine or resource with superfluous requests to overload systems and prevent legitimate requests from being fulfilled. The most common targets in such attacks are sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers of banks. [more from Wikipedia]
Breaches On The Rise?
According to recent surveys, 25,575 records are accessed in the average data breach. Since the beginning of (and due to) the COVID-19 pandemic, the FBI tells us that there has been a 300% increase in reported cybercrimes. In 2025, the global average cost of a data breach was reported as 4.44 million USD. In the United States, in that same year, the average cost of a data breach was 10.22 million USD, the highest of any world region.
So, why is this happening?
Studies show that 38% of all users never change their passwords. Perpetual passwords are like ticking timebombs. What’s more, cybercrime protections at businesses can be wholly inadequate. Indeed, 28% of data breach victims are small businesses, enterprises that typically lack the funding to institute sophisticated cybersecurity systems. This has led to many companies turning to AI for security solutions. However, according to the 2025 study by IBM, this has also created an “AI oversight gap” where ungoverned and unauthorized programs are breached. In turn, this ultimately costs companies much more money than they would have saved.
Whatever the business size, the inability to quickly detect and respond to data breaches can be devastating. In 2025, the average time to contain a data breach was 241 days, a slight reduction from the previous average of 280 days. Just imagine what cybercriminals can do with your information during that span of time.
Some other alarming statistics include:
- 58% of all healthcare data breaches are initiated by Insiders. (Forbes)
- The average data breach caused by a malicious insider costs companies 4.92 million USD. (IBM)
- Despite the very high number of publicized data breaches, the actual number of data breaches is likely far greater since many of those breaches have unknown numbers of compromised records.
- Social media data breaches accounted for 56% of data breaches in the first half of 2018. (IT Web)
- 20% of surveyed organizations suffered a breach due to unauthorized AI in 2025. (IBM)
- Cloud-based cyberattacks rose 630% between January and April 2020. (HIPAA Journal)
- The healthcare industry is the leading industry victimized by data breaches. (Statista)
- Data breaches in the healthcare industry are the most expensive, costing companies an average of 7.42 million USD. (IBM)
- More than 93% of healthcare organizations experienced a data breach in the three-year period preceding 2021. (Cyderes)
- Between 2017 and 2019, there was an 80% increase in the number of people affected by health data breaches, situations where very intimate personal information was accessed by criminals eager to sell it on the dark web.
- Worldwide, data breaches exposed 4.1 billion records in the first six months of 2019, and then 36 billion records in just the first half of 2020. These numbers grow annually.
- 51% of data breaches are from a malicious insider or criminal attack. (IBM)
- 23% of data breaches are from IT failure. (IBM)
- 26% of data breaches are from human error (e.g., phishing scams, AI deepfake impersonations). (IBM)
Data Breach Prevention
Get Educated
Reading the material on this data breach FAQ page is an excellent start but remain aware regarding to which companies you’ve given your medical and financial information. To do so, check periodically; if there have been data breaches reported against companies with whom you’ve done business, take action. Not only should you seek legal counsel immediately, but contacti the authorities, initiate a credit freeze and purchase ID/credit monitoring services.
Contact Companies: Consider contacting facilities and companies who possess your personal information and ask them what measures they are currently taking to protect it. If you don’t get a satisfactory answer, demand that they do more, and then contact us.
Backup Your Data: In some circumstances, the information you’ve given to third parties can be backed up on your own system. Don’t trust companies will have access to your information–especially if they’ve experienced a cyberattack. Create your own personalized storage and recovery system and keep it safe.
Request Data Deletion: If you have not done business with a company for a long time and do not intend to further do business with it, ask it to purge your data from its network. Companies often maintain your personal data for their own marketing purposes. Unless you welcome those marketing efforts, ask them to delete your data.
Use Available Tools: Use a password generator and password manager. Don’t open suspicious emails. Be vigilant for any suspicious activity on your email account. If you use the same password as the email account anywhere else, change it immediately. Finally, check sites you regularly use to ensure they’re safe.
Protect Credit Cards and Passwords: This measure is one you will hear the most from cybersecurity experts. We all know how important it is to change passwords frequently. Plus, we know not to transmit financial or other highly protected information across the Internet unless necessary, and only to those persons or companies you trust. But what passwords are you choosing? What’s more, don’t give critical information to vendors over the telephone. Be a pro at keeping your data secure.
You Got Hacked. Now What?
No hack is the same, but cybercriminals’ motives usually are. They want money and the satisfaction of knowing they could infiltrate an otherwise secure network. And yet, while their motives are clear, how you respond to such an attack might not be. Recent cybersecurity research shows that financially motivated attacks remain dominant, with ransomware and extortion techniques accounting for about one‑third (32%) of all confirmed breaches in the most recent Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report. More than two‑thirds (68%) of breaches involve a human element, meaning phishing, social engineering, or simple user error continue to play a major role. And the scale of the problem has grown dramatically. Global data breaches surged to more than 5.5 billion compromised accounts in 2024, nearly eight times higher than in 2023. These numbers reflect a massive and unprecedented jump in the volume of exposed data worldwide. If you were hacked, take the following steps:
Notify your friends, family members and internet “followers.” Most hackers are focused on financial gain. If they get access to your account, they may try to blackmail you or people associated with your hacked account. This form of social engineering can be highly effective. When individuals receive a message from their family members or friends to send information, codes from a cell phone, etc., they will often do it. Instead, create a page with information you can send to others to ensure those people are kept safe.
Today, most online services (like the information in this data breach center) will let you know if you attempt to log into their services with a unique computer, IP or browser. If you do not recognize a login attempt, take immediate action and secure your account by:
- Changing the password;
- Adding 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication); and
- Adding whatever additional security levels the service provides.
If you have been hacked, experts suggest the following steps:
- Change passwords on all online accounts to which you still have access, securing them quickly;
- Secure your main email account, change the password, implement a recovery email and enable Two-Factor Authentication;
- Inform your friends and family members you have been hacked to ensure they are not, in turn, scammed by the hackers now pretending to be you;
- Perform an assessment of which accounts have been hacked and what information the hackers have received about you and/or your network;
- Do not create a new profile or account on the same platform upon which you were hacked using the same credentials (e.g., the same email address or phone number);
- Never pay a ransom, unless advised to do so by law enforcement. If hackers approach you and ask for a ransom, contact local law enforcement, file a police report and consider retaining a third party who can talk to the hackers. Do not otherwise directly involve yourself. Most hackers are in it for the money; as soon as they understand you won’t give them money, they will oftentimes leave you alone and move on to their next victims.
Once you have a full overview of the situation and have secured all other online accounts, you can sometimes recover your hacked accounts. For example, check your emails and see if you can find security alerts from the service to which you’ve lost access. Some companies and services offer the option of resetting recent changes to your account. Try to reset your hacked account’s password, using both email and SMS options where applicable. If that doesn’t help, visit the service’s “help” portal to report a hacked account.
Contact the service directly if it offers a telephone number or support email address. While waiting for a response, monitor changes on the hacked account. For the worst extortion attempts and hacking breaches, involve your local law enforcement and file a police report. Use any one or more of the numerous paid services that can assist you to see whether your sensitive information has been accessed in a data breach. Don’t wait to get a letter regarding a data breach to check if your information is vulnerable. You may not get one.