San Jose, CA: Internet giant Yahoo! Inc. is facing an Internet security class action lawsuit further to the massive security breach that gave Eastern European hackers access to 450,000 users' unencrypted accounts.
The federal class action lawsuit alleges "Yahoo! Inc. is a leading Internet company that provides Internet based services to millions of users on a monthly basis and yet failed to deploy even the most rudimentary of protections for certain users' personal information. Consequently, a group of hackers, in the name of publicly humiliating Yahoo for its lax security measures, infiltrated a Yahoo database and publicly posted login credentials from over 450,000 accounts.
In the lawsuit, lead plaintiff Jeff Allan further alleges that his information, along with that of 450,000 other Yahoo! users was posted online for the world to see and use. Allan claims that within days of the security breach he received an alert of account fraud on his eBay account, which used the same login credentials as disclosed in the Yahoo breach. Allan does not know what other information the hackers and others have gathered about him.
"Plaintiff Allan brings this class action lawsuit against Yahoo for failing to adequately safeguard his and others' personal information. Mr. Allan seeks an order requiring Yahoo to remedy the harm caused by its negligent security, which may include compensating plaintiff and class members for resulting account fraud and for all reasonably necessary measures plaintiff and class members have had to take in order to identify and safeguard the accounts put at risk by Yahoo's negligent security," the lawsuit claims.
Allan claims the Yahoo!s negligence also cost class members "the cost of taking measures to identify and safeguard accounts put at risk by disclosure of the personal information stolen from Yahoo, including by purchasing credit monitoring services." He seeks an injunction, costs and damages for negligence. He is represented by Eric Gibbs with Gerard Gibbs of San Francisco.
