Judge Rules that Yahoo Breach Victims Can SueJudge Rules that Yahoo Breach Victims Can Sue

A federal judge gave the green light for plaintiffs in Yahoo's massive data breach case to move forward with their class action lawsuit, according to court documents published by TechRepublic.  

US District Court Judge Lucy Koh handed Yahoo a blow, which had sought to dismiss the class action lawsuit in its entirety. The data breaches at Yahoo between 2013 and 2016 affected more than 1 billion users.

Yahoo claimed the plaintiffs had no right to sue, given they allegedly did not suffer an actual injury; the alleged injury was not "fairly traceable" to the "challenged conduct," and the alleged injury could not be "redressed by a favorable [court] decision."

In her ruling, however, Judge Koh stated that the plaintiffs have adequately alleged these three points. In addressing the first issue, Koh contended that previous court cases have accepted the risk of future identity theft, as well as the loss in value of personal identification information, as sufficient in demonstrating actual injury.

Read more about the Yahoo court ruling here and in TechRepublic's report.