Washington State University to pay up to $4.7 million for data theft involving 1.2 million people
Washington State University learned a costly lesson after a hard drive containing the personal information of more than a million people was stolen from a self-storage locker in 2017. Now, the university is going to have to pay even more.
In a settlement approved in King County Superior Court on Thursday, the university agreed to pay up to $4.7 million in cash reimbursements, attorneys fees and administrative expenses. On top of that, the university will pay for two years of credit monitoring and insurance services for up to 1,193,190 people, according to the settlement agreement.
WSU spokesman Phil Weiler said the costs will come out of the university’s cyber-liability insurance policy and state insurance, not student fees or tuition.
The total amount will depend on the number of claims made. The stolen hard drive contained nearly 1.2 million people’s information, including social security numbers, addresses, contact information, career and health data, and college-admissions test scores. The data was collected over a 15-year period by the school’s Social and Economic Sciences Research Center.
Read more: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/wsu-to-pay-up-to-4-7-million-for-data-theft-involving-1-2-million-people/