American Bar Association Breach Impacts 1.4 Million Members

The American Bar Association (ABA), the world's largest association of legal professionals, was hit by a data breach in March 2023. It has since been disclosed that hackers accessed the login credentials of 1.4 million members.

A notice on the ABA’s website said they had detected “abnormal activity on its network on March 17, 2023.” An investigation determined that as early as March 6th, an unauthorized third party had gained access to the ABA network and obtained “usernames and hashed and salted passwords that you may have used to access online accounts on the old ABA website prior to 2018 or the ABA Career Center since 2018.”

In a statement made to BleepingComputer, the ABA confirmed that 1.4 million members were affected by the breach. The ABA also disclosed that this was not a ransomware attack, and no personal or corporate data was stolen. However, there are concerns that threat actors could abuse the stolen account credentials. Although passwords were hashed and salted, it is still possible to dehash them over time.

The ABA sent notifications to impacted members, urging them to change their passwords on its site and on any other sites that utilize the same credentials. ABA members were also advised to watch for spear-phishing emails impersonating the ABA, as threat actors could use them to access further personal information.

In response to the breach, a class action lawsuit was filed against the ABA on April 21st for allegedly failing to safeguard the data of its members. It seeks to represent all persons in the United States who registered an account with the ABA, excluding the ABA and its employees.

The plaintiff, Tiffany Troy, alleged that the ABA “grossly failed to comply with security standards” and “failed to uncover and disclose the extent of the breach and notify its affected customers of the breach in a timely manner.” The suit alleges a breach of an implied contract and a violation of state consumer fraud laws. The ABA has not commented on the ongoing litigation.