Saturday, October 18, 2025
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Deloitte, the state of Rhode Island’s technology vendor, could pay $6.3 million in a proposed class-action settlement over a cyberattack affecting 640,000 Rhode Islanders.
After lawyers’ fees, the settlement, depending on the distribution, could provide those impacted with less than $7 a person.
The data breach caused chaos in major elements of the Rhode Island state government, and about half of Rhode Island’s data was breached. Some of the personal data was found on the dark web.
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After weeks of confusion following the data breach, on December 30, 2024, Governor Dan McKee admitted that the cybercriminals had released private information about Rhode Island residents.
“Unfortunately, Deloitte has informed us that the cybercriminal released at least some RIBridges files to a site on the dark web. This is a scenario that the State has been preparing for, which is why earlier this month, we launched a statewide outreach strategy to encourage potentially impacted Rhode Islanders to protect their personal information. Right now, IT teams are working diligently to analyze the released files. This is a complex process, and we do not yet know the scope of the data that is included in those files, but as we’ve been saying for several weeks, we should assume that data contained in the RIBridges system has been compromised,” said McKee’s office at the time.
Per capita, this may be the worst cyber attack on state data in America.
Deloitte paid $5 million to the state of Rhode Island for expenses related to the December breach of the RIBridges social services system.
Lawyer’s Fees
One of the lawyers representing the group, Peter Wasylyk, said, “This settlement offers not only financial compensation but also ongoing protection in the form of fraudulent activity monitoring. Such monitoring enables individuals to watch their credit, detect suspicious activity early, and act before harm occurs. It offers lasting peace of mind well after the litigation is over.”
When asked about the compensation for the attorneys, Wasylyk said, “There are several law firms involved in this case. We will be applying for a total fee of up to $2,100,000 (of the $6.3M).”
“Class Counsel shall apply to the Court for an award of attorneys’ fees of up to one-third of the Settlement Fund ($2,100,000), plus reimbursement of costs. Any such award would compensate Class Counsel for investigating the facts, litigating the case, and negotiating the Settlement and will be the only payment to them for their efforts in achieving this Settlement and for their risk in undertaking this representation on a wholly contingent basis,” he added.
“Any attorneys’ fees, costs, and Service Award payments must be approved by the Court. The Court may award less than the amounts requested,” Wasylyk concluded.
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