Three former employees of Bentonville-based J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. have filed proposed class-action lawsuits in federal court, alleging that a cybersecurity breach exposed personal information belonging to thousands of current and former workers.
The lawsuits were filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas’ Fayetteville Division. The plaintiffs are Wendy Parnell of Bentonville, Shileen Lange of Richmond, Virginia, and Aaron Hunter of Ellenwood, Georgia.
The complaints refer to an Oct. 23 disclosure by a hacker group that claimed it had entered part of J.B. Hunt’s computer network and obtained employee information. The alleged data included names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, contact details and financial information, along with some business records.
“We are investigating a cybersecurity incident involving unauthorized access to certain information within an isolated portion of J.B. Hunt’s technology system,” a J.B. Hunt spokesperson said.
The company said its systems remained operational and that the incident had not disrupted its ability to serve customers. After learning of the incident, J.B. Hunt said it activated response procedures with help from a cybersecurity firm, notified law enforcement and revoked the unauthorized access.
Claims outlined in the lawsuits
The complaints identify the alleged attackers as a ransomware group known as Whitearmor. The group reportedly posted on a dark-web site that it had obtained 140,838 employee records containing personal information and national identification numbers. The lawsuits say the group demanded $5 million in ransom.
Hunter’s lawsuit also alleges that the group claimed to have obtained other categories of company information, including:
- About 1.7 million carrier contacts
- 38.2 million invoices
- 187,000 access-permission records
- 3,196 ranked account-takeover targets
- 973 Microsoft 365 mailboxes
The lawsuits seek class-action status on behalf of affected employees. The filings followed reports by cybersecurity websites that Whitearmor claimed to have breached J.B. Hunt’s network.
J.B. Hunt said it was continuing its investigation. The company did not comment on the lawsuits in response to questions.
