At least four New Jersey residents have filed federal class-action lawsuits against the consumer credit reporting firm Equifax following a major data beach earlier this month.
Nationally, dozens of class-action suits have been filed against Equifax after the company disclosed that data from at 143 million people was stolen following a cyber attack earlier this year.
The hackers were able to access Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, home addresses, and drivers license numbers, the suits allege.
The lawsuits say Equifax failed to protect their clients' information and that while the breach began as early mid-May, the company didn't notify its customers until September.
In the meantime, company executives sold more than $1.8 million in stock before disclosing that Equifax's security had been compromised.
Robert and Susan Kohn, of Freehold Township, are part of a suit with New York resident Dr. Mark Isacoff. All three are Equifax clients, each having paid more than a $109 a year for the company to monitor their credit and ensure the safety of their identity and finances.
Alana M. Bradley of Cherry Hill filed a separate suit as did Michelle O'Neill of Medford. All three lawsuits were filed in federal court and seek class action status.
The Equifax breach isn't the biggest cyber heist in history. That indignity still belongs to Yahoo, which was targeted in at least two separate digital burglaries that affected more than 1 billion of its users' accounts throughout the world.
But no Social Security numbers or drivers' licenses were taken in the Yahoo break-in.
The suits say also Equifax violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act and exhibited negligence in their "gross mismanagement" of person identifying information.
To see if your personal information was potentially impacted, visit Equifax's dedicated help page. Toward the bottom of that page, you will see a red box that says "Check Potential Impact." Click that. Then, provide your last name and the last six digits of you Social Security number.
After you submit that information, you will receive a message telling you whether your personal information may have been exposed in the data breach.
Th Associated Press contributed to this report. Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.