US-based healthcare service Lehigh Valley Well being Community (LVHN) has sought to dismiss the lawsuit filed by a affected person who misplaced her private knowledge, together with bare bodily examination footage.
The LVHN lawsuit was filed within the U.S. District Court docket for the Center District of Pennsylvania.
In line with studies, the company is claiming that sufferers can’t maintain it accountable for the theft of their private pictures.
The corporate argues that it did all the things attainable to safeguard the delicate data of its sufferers and that the accountability for the theft lies solely with the hackers who illegally gained entry to the data.
Arguments over the LVHN lawsuit
The corporate’s assertion comes after a number of of its sufferers reported that their non-public pictures have been stolen and shared on-line with out their consent.
The sufferers claimed that the corporate did not adequately secure its techniques, leaving them susceptible to cyberattacks.
A most cancers affected person filed a class action lawsuit on March 13 after her partially bare pictures have been stolen and leaked on a ransomware website throughout an information breach.
The affected person accused the hospital of placing cash over affected person privateness by refusing to pay the ransom demanded by the hackers.
“Even when the plaintiff’s data had been publicized, Depend V nonetheless fails as a result of LVHN didn’t voluntarily publicize that data. To be answerable for a declare for publicity given to personal life, a defendant should voluntarily and deliberately publicize the knowledge,” the brief read.
The info of the plaintiff accusing the healthcare of contemplating not paying a ransom over affected person data safety was leaked on the darkish net by the BlackCat ransomware group.
The plaintiff discovered about their pictures being leaked on-line and was saved within the techniques of Lehigh Valley Well being Community solely after watching media content material.
The argument to dismiss the plaintiff’s claims
“LVHN respects this potential influence to Plaintiff, which is why it prioritized notifying Plaintiff—and the opposite sufferers whose pictures have been posted on the darkish net…” learn the brief published on Friday, Could 5 as a response to the LVHN lawsuit.
Nonetheless, plaintiff’s publicity to personal life declare fails as a result of her data isn’t (and isn’t considerably sure to grow to be) public data and since BlackCat, not LVHN, disseminated her data,” it added.
It’s a identified authorized normal that to outlive dismissal below Rule 12(b)(6), the lawsuit should be backed by enough factual matter, that may be accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face,’ the community transient additional learn.
Lehigh Valley Well being Community ransomware assault, leaked pictures and LVHN lawsuit
LVHN is a group of 13 hospital campuses, 28 well being facilities, and lab providers in 10 jap Pennsylvania counties amongst others. Unauthorized entry to the Lehigh Valley Well being Community was detected on February 6, 2023.
LVHN disclosed that it has suffered a cyber assault from Russian ransomware group BlackCat/ALPHV. In an announcement, LVHN President and CEO Brian A. Nester stated that the attack had not disrupted LVHN’s operations.
Primarily based on the preliminary evaluation, the attack was on the network supporting one doctor follow situated in Lackawanna County.
The assault is alleged to be much like different cyber assaults carried out by the BlackCat ransomware gang on tutorial and healthcare organizations.
The ransomware group demanded an quantity over $5 million, which the plaintiff ‘Jane Doe’ compelled the Lehigh Valley Well being Community to pay. Quite the opposite, LVHN authorities denied paying the ransom, as per the advise by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
BlackCat ransomware group stole medical questionnaires, passports, driver’s license numbers, medical prognosis knowledge, and social security numbers within the heist. The group didn’t simply encrypt the system information after the LVHN ransomware assault, in addition they threatened to leak naked images of breast cancer sufferers on their leak website.
The Lehigh Valley Health Network class lawsuit filed on March 13 learn that the case was filed on the counts of wrongful conduct, misrepresentation, concealment, and illegal practices.
After months of the ransomware assault and the LVHN lawsuit, the web site of LVHN was not accessible.
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