RockYou Sued for Data Breach
Alan Claridge of Indiana sued RockYou for data breach after the company admitted that they have lost the personal identification data of their 30 million users because of a hack. The only mistake of RockYou was that they didn’t acknowledge the online attack for almost two weeks after it happened.
How were the personal data of RockYou’s million users lost?
RockYou kept its users’ personal data which are all confidential only in plain-text files or .txt docs. They have failed to protect the personally identifiable information (PII) of their users letting it be accessed by anyone who is capable to hack. No wonder the hacker, “igigi”, didn’t have a hard time exploiting RockYou’s SQL injection vulnerabilities because of its poor coding.
After that attack, RockYou sent a mail to its users, including Claridge, received an e-mail from RockYou saying that their information might have been compromised. But 12 days before that, RockYou already knew its own liabilities and decided to shut down the site. It even published an apology and explanation on the attack that happened on the website.
To prevent this from happening again, RockYou will cooperate with the investigation of the authorities on the illegal breach of its database. They will also encrypt all passwords, evaluate their data security features and upgrade their legacy platform with the standard security protocols. RockYou is sued for nine counts which include negligence, breach of contract, violation of California’s Computer Crime Law, and California’s Security Breach Information Act, among others.
How Can Techie Now Help?
Alan Claridge did the right thing when he sued RockYou for data breach. Regardless of RockYou’s website being hacked, they should still protect customer data and not to have waited for 12 days before informing its users about the hack. You’ll never know but you might be the next victim of these hackers. Protect your PC now! Contact Techie Now for PC support services that you need like virus and spyware removal, performance optimization, installation and configuration and general repair.