Razer awarded $8.7m in data leak lawsuit against IT vendor

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

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

The damages awarded comprised largely US$6.1 million in loss of profits from Razer's e-commerce platform.

The amount awarded also included about US$60,000 that Razer paid for a forensic expert to investigate the incident, about US$320,000 to engage a law firm to deal with regulators, and a US$2,000 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 Mr Wendell Wong and Mr Andrew Chua of Drew & 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 Mr 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, Mr Cabalag admitted that he had been the one who caused the misconfiguration.

In a written judgment, Justice Lee Seiu Kin found that Mr Cabalag's assistance on the login problem fell within the scope of work set out in an 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.

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This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.