{"id":5705,"date":"2025-05-08T16:31:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T16:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/iheartradio-faces-class-action-lawsuit-after-station-hacks-expose-data\/"},"modified":"2025-05-08T16:31:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T16:31:10","slug":"iheartradio-faces-class-action-lawsuit-after-station-hacks-expose-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/iheartradio-faces-class-action-lawsuit-after-station-hacks-expose-data\/","title":{"rendered":"iHeartRadio Faces Class-Action Lawsuit After Station Hacks Expose Data"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\ti<\/span>HeartMedia is facing a class-action lawsuit from subscribers after disclosing that several of its radio stations were hacked months ago, exposing Social Security numbers, financial information and other personal details.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit came a week after the radio giant (iHeartMedia + Entertainment Inc.) warned customers in regulatory filings last week that \u201can unauthorized actor viewed and obtained files\u201d at a \u201csmall number of our local stations\u201d in December, potentially stealing SSNs, dates of birth, and credit card info.<\/p>\n

\n\tiHeart said in the filings that it \u201cimmediately implemented our response protocols\u201d to contain the hack, and is offering free credit monitoring to those affected. The company also said it had \u201cstrengthened its existing security measures\u201d to \u201chelp prevent something like this from happening again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThose assurances were not enough for Cheryl Shields<\/strong>, a subscriber who filed a proposed class action against iHeart on Wednesday in New York federal court, seeking to represent customers nationwide whose data was compromised. In doing so, her attorneys blasted iHeart for waiting four months to warn subscribers that their data was at risk.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs a result of this delayed response, plaintiff and class members had no idea for four months that their private information had been compromised, and that they were, and continue to be, at significant risk of identity theft and various other forms of personal, social, and financial harm,\u201d Shield\u2019s lawyers write. \u201cThe risk will remain for their respective lifetimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe data exposed in the iHeart breach \u201crepresents a gold mine for data thieves,\u201d the lawyers write, and there has been \u201cno assurance offered by iHeart that all personal data or copies of data have been recovered or destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement to Billboard<\/em> on Thursday, a spokesperson for iHeart confirmed that the company had \u201cdiscovered and addressed an incident involving unusual activity on some systems at a small number of our local stations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUpon detecting the activity, we took immediate steps to block\u00a0it;\u00a0triggered our incident response\u00a0protocols; and\u00a0launched an investigation with the assistance of a third-party cybersecurity firm. We also notified law enforcement,\u201d the company said.\u00a0\u201cWe have strengthened our security measures to prevent something like this from happening again and apologize for any concern or inconvenience this may cause.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSuch lawsuits are common following data breaches. After the credit-reporting company Equifax suffered a 2017 data breach that exposed the personal data of nearly 150 million Americans, the company agreed to pay $425 million to resolve nationwide class-action litigation filed by consumers.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe scale of the iHeart data breach is undoubtedly far smaller. The company did not disclose in regulatory filings how many total victims were involved nationwide, though a notification filed in Maine said only three subscribers in that state had been impacted. Disclosure forms were also filed in California and Massachusetts, as first reported The Record<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\tIn technical legal terms, Wednesday\u2019s lawsuit accused iHeart of negligence, arguing that the company had a legal duty to safeguard consumer\u2019s data.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs a national media and audio provider in possession of millions of customers\u2019 private information, iHeart knew, or should have known, the importance of safeguarding the<\/p>\n

\n\tPrivate Information entrusted to it by Plaintiff and Class Members and of the foreseeable consequences they would suffer if iHeart\u2019s data security systems were breached,\u201d Shields\u2019 lawyers write. \u201cNevertheless, iHeart failed to take adequate cybersecurity measures to prevent the data breach.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

iHeartMedia is facing a class-action lawsuit from subscribers after disclosing that several of its radio stations were hacked months ago, exposing Social Security numbers, financial information and other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3033,292,5855,458,5854,5853,303,5848],"class_list":["post-5705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-classaction","tag-data","tag-expose","tag-faces","tag-hacks","tag-iheartradio","tag-lawsuit","tag-station"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}