Sony faces class action lawsuit for PSN fiasco

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Go figure: the recent PSN data breach has prompted a class action suit against Sony. Filed in a California district court by the Rothken law firm, the 22-page complaint accuses Sony of failing to adequately secure the sensitive information of its users. The company revealed Wednesday that it stored the contact information, age, location, and usernames/passwords of some 77 million PSN accounts in an unencrypted state. Hackers gained access to this data during a security breach that has left PSN offline since last week.

The filing asserts that some PSN users have begun to experience losses from fraudulent use of credit card information swiped in the breach, but we're not sure how accurate that is. Many users have reported that their financial accounts have been fraudulently charged in recent days, but Sony has repeatedly stated that there is no evidence to suggest credit card numbers were taken. Furthermore, the company kept credit information encrypted on its servers, so we don't know what to make of users' claims just yet. Feel free to chime in if you've been affected.

According to the filing, Sony's negligence violates the Payment Card Industry Standard, a regulation that protects consumers from having their credit card and transaction information stored without the proper security requirements. The suit blames Sony for not informing customers that their data was being stored by insecure methods. It also accuses the company of taking an unreasonably long time to announce the data breach in an official capacity, leaving users with insufficient time to cancel credit cards and change passwords.

"Sony's breach of its customers' trust is staggering," said Rothken co-counsel J.R. Parker. "Sony promised its customers that their information would be kept private. One would think that a large multinational corporation like Sony has strong protective measures in place to prevent the unauthorized disclosure of personal information, including credit card information. Apparently, Sony doesn't." The firm seeks compensation for the time and money users spent for credit monitoring and replacement -- not to mention a new pair of underwear.

*Comic via VG Cats

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/43564-sony-faces-class-action-lawsuit-for-psn-fiasco.html

 

[LinkedKube]

Oh joy!( Ren and Stimpy voice) Wonder how this will play out.

 

[Greg S]

It was only a matter of time.

 

[Cota]

supersmashbrada said:
Oh joy!( Ren and Stimpy voice) Wonder how this will play out.

Sacrifice!! Sacrifice!! Sacrifice!! *puts on leaves skirt and takes and ukulele*

 

[gwailo247]

supersmashbrada said:
Oh joy!( Ren and Stimpy voice) Wonder how this will play out.

Each PSN customer will get $12.74, while the attorneys pocket 200 million.

 

[Guest]

I hope they finally fixed the nat problem with their server

 

[Trillionsin]

hahaha. everything seems to be working out as planned.

 

[Greg S]

gwailo247 said:
Each PSN customer will get $12.74, while the attorneys pocket 200 million.

That would be overkill. Sony isn't going to pay out any more than $5 a person. I think it should be more along the lines of $5,000 a person, but this isn't the same thing as illegal music. Even I know how to encrypt simple text or just straight hash it. Granted encryption can be broken, but that would have cut the number of compromised accounts to much less than 77 million.

 

[MrAnderson]

Didn't all the credit card companies just loose the same kind of infomation? They said the credit card info was encrypted, that was the best we could hope for at this point considering they have not confirmed that this infor was taken or not. Unless I missed the confirmation. It sucks, but what can we do... but wait for the network to go back up so we can link our Portal 2 to PC and play other online games we have all been itching to play - right.

And yes, hopefully this will help improve their network security and stability. Maybe they should have duplicate network and ask hackers to attack it for prizes the same way google tries to improve the browser... uhm... probably will not happen...

 

[Guest]

I think the lawsuit is a bunch of crap. Just a bunch of gready Lawyers that will get a big chunk of the money and we would get maybe 10.00 bucks out of it.

 

[Guest]

Am I mistaken? I thought ATT got the supreme court to end class action lawsuits.

 

[Guest]

this is simply ridiculous ive been reading all the blog posts about how users are owed something because the network is down. i just have one question besides the personal info being taken which was not a good thing and it should have been better protected but that neither he nor there. all the users bitching because they cant play a online game is very depressing. to think someone is losing sleep over a game is sad what has our world come to. now dont get me wrong i love my ps3 and just two days ago my backwards 80 gig died but guess what i am so loyal that im going out tomorrow and getting a new one. its not been 2 weeks i promise u will all survive this and the funny thing is that when the network does come back up everyone will be so eager to play u all will probably crash the server so keep that in mind and also keep in mind that the network usage IS ****ING FREE so compensation for down time is not necessary sincerely raven

 

[Guest]

Compensation is for people that lost something. What did we lose? The ability to play online for a couple of weeks? I can still play locally and my credit card hasnt been breached in any way. Who exactly is the "class" in this lawsuit? Sony offers me a free service that is currently broken. I guess they can pay me for the down time. What exactly is 14 days worth of free worth these days?

 

[Guest]

but then u forgot ppl pay 50 pound a year for ps plus n ps3 users pay 200 pound more for our ps3 so why not i bet ur actually really dieing to play it, as u said ur buying a new one lol thts probably worse

 

[Guest]

I spent at the maximum of £500 so I want that back instead of compensation!!!

 

[Kibaruk]

Hahahaahahaha I love to hear more from this lawsuit =)

 

[Guest]

THIS IS AMERICA! HECK YEAH!!! We are entitled to everything!

My lawyer advised me to drop the personal data-related lawsuit but instead, I am entitled to an even bigger paycheck if i bring up the mental/emotional stress i received the past week. Without PSN, I was unable to relieve those stress by fragging some nubs in Black OPS multiplayer. He promised i don't have to work for the rest of my life yo!!!






/end sarcasm

 

[Recipe7]

Wow.

Shouldn't they allow Sony to find the real culprits rather than steal more things from them, in this case, money?

Or instead, sue those involved.

WOW

 

[Guest]

That's what you get when you piss off anonymous.

 

[matrix86]

They can sue all they want, they aren't going to get any money out of it. Unless the hackers got your credit card info and used it to make purchases, the courts aren't going to grant you any money. Sony might get a couple of hefty fines, but that's the most that's going to come out of this.

 

[Guest]

Hopefully this will be this horrible company's end. They haven't done much other than lose money year after year anyway.

 

[yRaz]

Guest said:
Hopefully this will be this horrible company's end. They haven't done much other than lose money year after year anyway.

then all we will have is The xBox and then there will be NO competition.

 

[T77]

trillionsin said:
hahaha. everything seems to be working out as planned.

Absolutely correct....
I personally feel that 2010-2011 can be termed as the season of the "suits" !
BTW nice cartoon..

 

[Guest]

I am not a Sony fan, but if Sony is responsible for being hacked, then so are all the other online companies who got hacked by Anon -- MasterCard, Citi group, Bank of America, etc...

Everyone loses, except for the lawyers, that is. I am going raise my kids to be a lawyer. Heck, I myself am going back to get a law degree, too.

 

[PinothyJ]

Guest said:
That's what you get when you piss off anonymous.

Anonymous as a whole had nothing to do with ANY attack on the PSN. Anonymous was always going to attack Sony but was never going to put innocent gamers out of their play time because they had nothing to do with Sony's dickings.

Man I want to punch Guests in the ****...