Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich Joins $1.25 Million Multistate Settlement Over Carnival Cruise Line Data Breach

PHOENIX – Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced today that Arizona, along with 45 other attorneys general, obtained a $1.25 million multistate settlement with Florida-based Carnival Cruise Line, stemming from a 2019 data breach that involved the personal information of approximately 180,000 Carnival employees and customers nationwide. Arizona will receive $52,177.22 from the settlement.

“It’s never smooth sailing when your personal information has been compromised," said Attorney General Mark Brnovich. “Carnival Cruise Line will now be running a tighter ship.”

In March 2020, Carnival publicly reported a data breach in which an unauthorized person gained access to certain employee e-mail accounts. The breach included names, addresses, passport numbers, driver’s license numbers, payment card information, health information, and some Social Security numbers. 4,849 Arizona residents were impacted.  An investigation was started after breach notifications showed Carnival only reported the incident 10 months after it happened.
 
Under the settlement, Carnival has agreed to strengthen its email security and breach response practices going forward. Those include:

  • Implementation and maintenance of breach response and notification plan;
  • Email security training requirements for employees, including dedicated phishing exercises;
  • Multi-factor authentication for remote email access;
  • Password policies and procedures requiring the use of strong, complex passwords, password rotation, and secure password storage;
  • Maintenance of enhanced behavior analytics tools to log and monitor potential security events on the company’s network; and
  • Consistent with past data breach settlements, undergoing an independent information security assessment.

Assistant Attorney General Christopher Sloot is handling this matter for the state.

Joining General Brnovich are the attorneys general from Connecticut, Florida, Washington, Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio, North Carolina, Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.