Navigating Privacy Breaches with John Yanchunis of Morgan & Morgan

“Today in America, one of our most damaging aspects of our life is the loss of our privacy.” 
John Yanchunis
Morgan & Morgan, Class Action
 

Cyberattacks are up across the board. John Yanchunis leads the charge in holding companies accountable. 

Ever since COVID-19 drove our lives increasingly online, cyberattacks and data breaches have been up across the board. It is more crucial than ever that companies appropriately safeguard their customer, client, and employee data. Organizations with negligent cybersecurity practices put their customers and workers at risk of financial loss, identity theft, harassment, and other preventable issues. These businesses should be held accountable for failing to protect this sensitive information. 

In late May 2023, hundreds of insurance companies, financial institutions, and heath care facilities across the globe fell victim to a major data breach that exposed the private data of millions of people on the dark web. As investigators scramble to stop those responsible for the online attacks, many people are wondering what they can do to protect themselves in similar situations.

When it comes to the unauthorized disclosure of personal information, the healthcare industry is in a class of its own. In a 2023 HIPAA compliance report to Congress, the Ofice of Civil Rights documented a 58% increase in large data breaches reported between 2017 and 2021, affecting some 37 million individuals in total.

Morgan & Morgan’s class action group, led by John Yanchunis, has spent over two decades helping victims recover costs incurred in data breaches. Yanchunis and his team have been involved in the successful negotiation of many high-profile cases, including: 

• A $190 million deal resolving claims from the 98 million people whose data was compromised by the 2019 Capital One data hack.
• A $380.5 million settlement against Equifax over a 2017 data breach–the biggest data breach settlement to date. 
• A $117.5 million settlement arising from a series of data breaches at Yahoo!, with victims receiving settlement checks and other compensation such as free credit monitoring services.
• A $63 million settlement resolving a 2015 data breach preliminarily approved by a Washington, D.C. federal court for a U.S. Ofice of Personnel Management hack that compromised the data of 25 million federal employees. 

Beyond these massive victories, Yanchunis presses on with new cases—and novel claims—against major names like Alphabet Inc., X, formerly known as Twitter, Microsoft, and TikTok Inc. at Morgan & Morgan PA, landing him a spot among Law360’s 2023 Titans of the Plaintiffs Bar.