Users filed a class action lawsuit against hardware wallet maker Ledger and e-commerce platform Shopify over a data breach last year.
In July 2020, Ledger reported a breach in its marketing database, leading to the release of a million emails and some personal documents from customers. The compromised database was later put up for sale on the Internet, after which people began to complain about fraudulent emails.
A few months ago, Ledger provided details, reporting that about 292,000 customers were affected by the data breach. It turned out that the “information leak” began to occur back in April 2020 in connection with the misconduct of some employees of the Shopify platform, which sells Ledger wallets.
Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier has assured users that hackers have failed to obtain users’ financial data and that their funds are safe. However, on April 6, users filed a lawsuit in San Francisco court against Ledger and Shopify using the services of law firm Roche Freedman. The amount of the claim is estimated at $ 5 million. The complaint lists two Ledger users, whose total losses as a result of phishing attacks amounted to 4.2 BTC, 11 ETH and 150,000 XLM.
Roche Freedman is known for filing class action lawsuits against cryptocurrency exchange Binance, the Tron project, and iFinex, the parent company of Tether and Bitfinex. Additionally, last week Roche Freedman filed a lawsuit against lending platform Nexo on behalf of her client. Law firm partner Kyle Roche said an investigation into the Ledger incident has been underway since it became known to the public. During the investigation, interviews were held with experts in the field of cryptocurrency and data security.
Ledger’s general counsel Antoine Thibault said the company would not comment on current legal issues. However, Ledger once again warns its customers not to disclose the seed phrase for accessing the cryptocurrency wallet under any circumstances. The key point in litigation is the responsibility of the parties. While the hardware wallets were not compromised, the prosecution believes Ledger had to make sure the Shopify platform was secure in order to keep customers safe and anonymous. Confidential companies Ledger and Shopify are required to provide an explanation of why it took them so long to alert their customers to what happened, Roche said.
In December, Ledger executives said the company would not compensate customers affected by the data breach.
