Sony could pay up to $8M in hacking lawsuit

Elizabeth Weise | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Sony Entertainment CEO says hack was "Chaotic and Tumultuous" The CEO of Sony Entertainment says the government needs to do more to help companies prevent cyberattacks like the devastating breach to which Sony was subject last year.

SAN FRANCISCO—Sony Pictures Entertainment will pay up to $4.5 million in a settlement with current and former employees whose information was stolen when hackers penetrated the company's computer network more than a year ago, according to legal filings.

Lawyers in the case would receive close to $3.5 million, bringing Sony's total payout to $8 million. The settlement was filed Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

Sony was the victim of a ferocious cyberattack two days before Thanksgiving in 2014, by what the U.S. government later said was a group of North Korean hackers. The attack released tens of thousands of pages of sensitive files and information.

It was tied to the release of "The Interview," a comedy starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, about an attempted assassination attempt on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The maximum amount to be paid to each current or past Sony employee whose information was exposed in the hack was set at $1,050, out of a $2 million fund.

Employees who were actually the victim of identity theft because of the hack are eligible for a maximum payment of $10,000, out of a $2.5 million fund. However such losses are notoriously difficult to prove.

"It is a surprisingly small fund, considering the extent of the breach," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, DC