Former Malone student-athlete files federal lawsuit over Matt Weiss-related hacking
The class action lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Cleveland on Thursday on behalf of the student, referred to in the complaint as Jane Doe, who attended Malone from 2107 to 2022 and was on the university's swim team, and potentially many others.
It comes on the heels of an investigation into former University of Michigan football Offensive Coordinator Matt Weiss. Weiss is facing 14 counts of unauthorized access to computers and 10 counts of aggravated identity theft.
Weiss is accused of hacking into thousands of student accounts and downloading confidential information from more than 150,000 student athletes, mostly female. Jane Doe has been identified by the U.S. Department of Justice as a potential victim of the nationwide hacking case.
The federal lawsuit names Malone University, Matthew Weiss, and Keffer Development Services, LLC. The suit alleges the university and others failed to protect students from Weiss.
Earlier this month, attorneys representing the former Malone student, who lives in Cleveland, asked the university to preserve evidence, especially electronically stored items.
The lawsuit claims Malone and Keefer, a Pennsylvania-based company that provided its Athletic Trainer System to the school to store personal information and health information of athletes, allowed Weiss to access Jane Doe's personal and health information, including treatment history, injuries and height and weight. Weiss allegedly was also able to access additional information from the victim's social media and email accounts. Weiss is accused of downloading personal photos and videos that weren't his.
The suit claims both Mount Union and Keefer had the responsibility and duty to protect the athletes' private information but allowed Weiss to invade the victims' privacy and were negligent in protecting that information.
Weiss exploited the vulnerabilities in the university's account authorization process to gain access to the student accounts, the suit said.
The lawsuit seeks significant compensatory damages exceeding $5,000,000, along with costs for interest, attorney fees.
Malone did not respond to requests Thursday for comment.
Earlier this month, the university released this statement:
"Malone University takes the privacy and security of our students' and employees' data seriously, and we have extensive policies and best practices in place to protect all data in our possession," according to a statement from the university.
Reach Amy at 330-775-1135 or amy.knapp@indeonline.com.
This article originally appeared on The Independent: Malone University sued by former student-athlete over data breach
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