Labcorp data breach settlement secures $90G for NYS, AG James says

New York will receive nearly $90,000 in a settlement following a data breach that exposed the private health information of millions of Labcorp clients, the office of Attorney General Letitia James announced.

James joined a bipartisan coalition of 43 other attorneys general in the settlement, which secured about $2.3 million overall. It will also enact "critical reforms to protect consumers," according to a release from the AG's office.

Labcorp offers laboratory testing for diagnostic services and has more than 30 locations throughout Long Island.

The data breach of Labcorp's debt collector, the American Medical Collection Agency (AMCA), potentially exposed the personal information of about 27 million people nationwide — about 10 million Labcorp patients, and 420,000 New Yorkers, the release said.

In a statement, James said: "Labcorp will make critical changes to protect patients and prevent this kind of data breach from happening again."

That will include a revamp of data security policies and the implementation of a new data-sharing system for third-party debt collectors, according to the release.

Labcorp could not be immediately reached for comment.

Between Aug. 1, 2018, and March 30, 2019, a hacker entered AMCA's internal system, obtaining customers' personal information including payment card information, Social Security numbers and names of medical tests, James' office said.

By Rachel Weiss

rachel.weiss@newsday.com@RachMWeiss

Rachel Weiss joined Newsday in 2016. As a real estate/living multimedia reporter, Rachel writes feature stories and contributes to and appears in on-camera video packages. She was the lead reporter on Newsday’s LI Acts of Kindness series.