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After a data breach possibly exposed information for more than 750,000 current and former students, employees and applicants at Lansing Community College in Michigan, resulting in a lawsuit, the college will pay $1.45 million to settle the claims, The Lansing State Journal reported Tuesday.
Although a judge still has to approve the terms of the settlement—a hearing is set for January—the six plaintiffs who attached their names to the suit will receive $1,500 each. The college has sent out postcards to an unknown number of other possible data-breach victims alerting them of the settlement, which could yield up to $2,000 per claim.
However, LCC has denied any significant damage from the breach, which occurred between December 2022 and March 2023 after an “unauthorized actor” hacked the college’s internal computer systems, according to the lawyers who settled the case, according to the State Journal.
“There is no evidence indicating that any personal identifiable information of the named plaintiffs, or any other persons, was exfiltrated from LCC’s computer networks,” the college said in court document.
While the specifics about the data breach aren’t publicly known, the college is “discontinuing the use of the vulnerable application attacked by the unauthorized actor,” increasing verification steps and digital surveillance of the college’s computer systems, and reducing the number of authorized administrators, according to the settlement.
Earlier this year, Hope College in Holland, Mich., settled a similar lawsuit for $1.5 million after a 2022 data breach, though the State Journal reported that breach exposed the personal information of far fewer people than the one at LCC.
