Hacked Companies On Guard After Court Decision; Man Sues Ashley Madison Post-Hack for ’Emotional Distress’

Washington Informer August 26, 2015

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A June 10, 2015 photo from files showing Ashley Madison's Korean web site on a computer screen in Seoul, South Korea. Hackers claim to have leaked a massive database of users from Ashley Madison, a matchmaking website for cheating spouses. In a statement released Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2015, a group calling itself Impact Team said the site's owners had not bowed to their demands. "Now everyone gets to see their data," the statement said. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

(The Washington Post) – Hacked companies, get ready — a federal court just made it easier for the government to sue you. “Monday’s decision from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals clarifies the [Federal Trade Commission’s] powers, giving it more ammunition against businesses that fail to invest in their own security,” The Washington Post reports. “

And that could be good news for consumers in light of the growing pace of online attacks … The court’s decision finds that the FTC acted appropriately when it sued Wyndham Worldwide Corporation, a massive international hotel chain and hospitality conglomerate, after Wyndham was hacked three times in two years, exposing the credit card data of more than 600,000 customers.”

SPEAKING OF LAWSUITS: A man is suing infidelity Web site Ashley Madison and its parent company in federal court, saying he suffered emotional distress after the site was hacked. “The lawsuit claims that the data breach could have been prevented if the company had taken ‘necessary and reasonable precautions to protect its users’ information, by, for example, encrypting the data,’” Reuters reports.