Gaming firm Razer wins lawsuit against IT vendor over data leak, awarded S$8.7mil in damages


Shipping information and order details of thousands of customers worldwide were leaked in a widely reported cybersecurity breach in September 2020. The gaming firm, which is dual-headquartered in Singapore and the United States, sued the vendor, Capgemini, in the same year over the breach. — Photo by Zany Jadraque on Unsplash

SINGAPORE: Gaming hardware company Razer has won its lawsuit against an IT vendor over a data leak and was awarded US$6.5mil (S$8.7mil or RM28.65mil) in damages by the High Court on Dec 9.

Shipping information and order details of thousands of customers worldwide were leaked in a widely reported cybersecurity breach in September 2020. The gaming firm, which is dual-headquartered in Singapore and the United States, sued the vendor, Capgemini, in the same year over the breach.

The damages awarded comprised largely US$6.1mil (RM26.88mil) in loss of profits from Razer’s ecommerce platform.

The amount awarded also included about US$60,000 (RM264,480) that Razer paid for a forensic expert to investigate the incident, about US$320,000 (RM1.41mil) to engage a law firm to deal with regulators, and a US$2,000 (RM8,816) payment to cyber-security consultant Bob Diachenko, who discovered the breach.

The dispute arose over the misconfiguration of a server file, which in turn led to the data leak.

Razer, represented by Wendell Wong and Andrew Chua of Drew and Napier, said the misconfiguration occurred during a 16-minute window on June 18, 2020.

Razer said former Capgemini employee Argel Cabalag, who was tasked to do troubleshooting after Razer staff could not log in to the system, was the only one who accessed the server during the 16-minute window.

Razer said Cabalag added a “#” command to a configuration file that controlled security to a computer application. This misconfiguration allowed unauthenticated access into the application.

Capgemini, represented by Senior Counsel Andre Yeap of Rajah & Tann, said its employee did not cause the misconfiguration and suggested that new IP addresses set up by Razer could have been the cause.

However, on the sixth day of trial, Cabalag admitted that he had been the one who had caused the misconfiguration.

In a written judgment, Justice Lee Seiu Kin found that Cabalag’s assistance on the login problem fell within the scope of work set out in a April 2020 agreement between the parties.

The judge said Capgemini had breached its contractual obligations to Razer and had also been negligent in its response to Razer’s login problem. – The Straits Times (Singapore)/Asia News Network

Follow us on our official WhatsApp channel for breaking news alerts and key updates!
   

Next In Tech News

Can an Apple�Watch get AFib patients off bloodthinners?
South Korea fines Meta about $15 million over collection of user data
Ehailing service Bolt says it’s launching in Malaysia soon, already licensed by Apad
French IT firm Atos agrees to sell Worldgrid unit to Alten
Opinion: These Apple researchers just showed that AI bots can’t think, and possibly never will
Nintendo cuts annual profit forecast by 10% as Switch sales slow
You may have blocked someone on X but now they can see your public posts anyway
Japan taps US chip startup Tenstorrent to help train new wave of engineers
Chinese AI firms are splurging on ads, report finds, as chatbot market gets crowded
Data of over 148,000 people leaked after ransomware attack on 2 Hong Kong hearing centres

Others Also Read