Washington College is one step closer to finalizing a settlement after a class action lawsuit over data stolen in a ransomware attack was filed this summer. Documents filed in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court show more than 13,000 people — current and former students and employees of the school — were affected by the data breach. Though the final approval hearing for the settlement is scheduled for May, the court granted the plaintiffs’ unopposed motion for preliminary approval of the settlement. The plaintiffs say in filings that Washington College’s data was breached for about a month between February and March 2023, in what the college called “a potential ransomware incident” by an “unauthorized actor.”