Met Opera is sued over compromising staff and customer data
NewsWhen the Met online box-office was shut down for nine days last December by a major hack, the loss of revenue was extreme.
But those costs could be about to go sky-high.
Anthony Viti, a former Met employee, has filed a lawsuit on behalf of 45,000 other staff and customers, claiming that his Social Security number, driver’s license, date of birth and financial account information were all accessed by the hackers.
Once the hack was first discovered, he alleges, it took more than two months for the Met to get protected: ‘For approximately two months, The Met failed to detect an intruder with access to and possession of The Met’s current/former employees and consumers’ data. It took a complete shutdown of The Met’s website and box office for The Met to finally detect the presence of the intruder.’
The Met’s response? ‘We strongly believe this case has no merit.’
Read more here.
I like that the Met lawyer’s surname is Basta. Seems appropriate.
If he takes on a law partner named Roberti, they can be “Basta, Roberti” and handle cases for Baron Scarpia.
Both private companies and government websites – particularly here in the U.S. – seem to be too lax and complacent about the dangers which hackers pose. In our usual way, we’ll probably do nothing UNTIL major bucks are lost to a hacker. And this despite some well-known instances of ransomware attacks and other such stuff on banks, hospitals and even the U.S. Department of Defense.
C’mon, no system is perfect against hackers, not even that of the biggest banks, least of all that of a non-profit arts organization, and frankly, I’ll just say it, the hackers were not interested in the staff members, you guys don’t have enough wealth, they were interested in the patrons!
And if you win your lawsuit, where do you think that money is coming out of? Your salaries and health care plans and retirements! Some of you will be laid off.
You are just suing yourselves!
From insurance…
If they have that kind of insurance – and getting paid by the insurer isn’t always very easy even if you do have said type of policy.
This will go to a class action suit that will take four years of expensive lawyering and after the lawyrs all make several thousand apiece for 4 hours work, each plaintiff will get $4.50 pay off… eventually.