Barings Law Law Firm, located in Manchester, reports an increase in the number of plaintiffs joined the collective lawsuit against Capita. The lawsuit was filed after a loud cyber attack on the company in March of this year, which Capita initially tried to serve as a technical failure.
In June, Barings Law sent Capita an official letter with claims, announcing an “amazing number of appeals” at 250 people. By July, the number of customers joining the lawsuit had already reached 1000. At the moment, this number has doubled, and there are now 2000 people. Among the plaintiffs are pension customers, company employees, and medical workers affected by data leakage.
“Barings Law still receives a large number of requests and signatures for the lawsuit daily,” says Adanan Malik, head of the data leakage department at Barings Law.
In March, Capita noticed a violation in their IT system and suspended their work. The breach occurred on March 22, but it only became known nine days later on March 31.
The responsibility for the cyber attack was later claimed by the hacker group Black Basta, who even published part of the stolen data as evidence, including information about bank accounts, addresses, and photographs of victim passports.
Initially, Capita representatives believed that unauthorized access had been obtained to 4% of their server space. However, they later revised this figure to 1% and admitted that there was some evidence that the criminals had accessed customer, supplier, or colleague data.
In addition, in May, information about pension schemes controlled by Capita was added to the list of leaked data. These schemes contained 4.3 million participants. The local pension regulator was notified, and clients were advised to directly contact Capita regarding possible risks.
In the UK, 90 companies have reported that their information was compromised during the hack of Capita. The estimated cost of mitigating the consequences is £25 million, which is 25% higher than previous estimates.
In one of their official statements, Capita emphasized the importance of robust protection and announced the launch of a long-term program to improve their cybersecurity following the incident.
Regarding the claim, Capita representatives consistently deny any grounds for legal action due to the cyber attack.