Toronto based Ashley Madison has officially agreed to pay $11.2 million as cyber attack settlement in response to an American Class Action lawsuit which stemmed from a massive security breach which took place 2 years ago.
However, the proposed settlement is yet to get the approval of United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, where the lawsuit was filed.
In July 2015, a data breach took place on the computer network of Ruby Corp-previously known as Avid Life Media/Avid Dating Life. The breach exposed data related to personal dealings and financial info of millions of Ashley Madison website customers, as it was being operated and maintained by Ruby Life Inc.
Dowd & Dowd, PC, The Driscoll Firm, PC and Heninger Garrison Davis, LLC filed a lawsuit against Ruby Corp for not keeping the information of Ashley Madison customer accounts safe and isolated from hackers.
Recently, Cybersecurity Insiders learned that Ruby paid more than $1.6 million in a settlement related to prove led by US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Some media sources later revealed that half of the money went to the FTC while half of it was delivered to the treasuries of the states participating in the probe. And as a part of the agreement, Ruby Corp vowed to implement a comprehensive Information Security program by abandoning all past business practices that have been alleged to be misleading consumers.
FTC later disclosed to the media that Ashley Madison used to play with inadequate security practices in place before the hack. And the Federal Trade Commission also disclosed that Ashley Madison was cheating customers by replacing fake profiles of women or so-called chat bots to lure unsuspecting male clients.
Nevertheless, Ruby claimed that the accusations made on it were false, it was later revealed by a secret operation carried out by UK resource that Ruby Corp did indulge in malpractices to attract male customers in an obnoxious way.
In order to avoid further embarrassment, Ruby, which earlier denied any wrong doing, has finally agreed to pay an $11.2 million as a settlement to the plaintiffs who filed the data breach lawsuit against its company in the court.
Ruby has also made a public announcement yesterday that it is doing all this to avoid the uncertainty, expense, and inconvenience associated with continued litigation
