Ex-Sony Pictures Entertainment employees filed a proposed class action lawsuit on Wednesday regarding the breach of records with the entertainment company in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
In a report from the Associated Press, the settlement was announced in a federal lawsuit seeking for a class-action status with 50,000 Sony employees whose medical information, Social Security numbers, salary details and other personal and financial records were divulged online.
"We believe the proposed settlement is a favorable resolution of the claims asserted by the plaintiffs," Daniel C. Girard, Northern District of California attorney, wrote upon filing.
Ten of its former employees sued Sony Pictures whose personal records were hacked in 2014. The employees filed the case in Los Angeles U.S. District Court.
It seemed like the company is more focused to save its public image rather than protecting its workers' personal information from identity theft. According to the report from Digital Trends, two of the plaintiffs charged Sony Pictures for not securing its servers despite the previous hacking incidents.
The case hearing is scheduled on September 14. The plaintiffs must submit a motion for preliminary approval before October 19 in the L.A. federal court,Reuters reported.
The ex-employees blame Sony which caused them to change / upgrade their credit cards to avoid private information theft. They said the company is responsible for securing employees' personal data. Consequently, a U.S. judge declined the company's bid to dismiss the case in June.
Lionel Felix, the former director of Technology at Sony Pictures identified the hack on servers following the 2011 PlayStation Network attack, exposing million of user accounts along with the security audit that discovered vulnerabilities from Sony's security system.
The files including email messages and unreleased films were disclosed in public last November. The FBI traced it to North Korea. It was rumored the hackers did it because of Sony's upcoming film "The Interview" starred by Seth Rogen which is about an assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The hackers allegedly insisted Sony Pictures to cancel its launch on Christmas Day. Later on, Sony conceived, but the movie file has been all over on different platforms.
At this point, the North Korean authorities still denied any engagement with the incident. No one has been prosecuted yet.
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