Sony hit with fourth class-action lawsuit

Sony Pictures Entertainment legal was hit with a fourth class-action lawsuit related to November hacks and attacks carried out against the studio for making the The Interview, Seth Rogen and James Franco's satirical assassination comedy.

The lawsuit was filed by two former IT employees at the studio on Thursday at the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The plaintiffs, Michael Levine and Lionel Felix, claim Sony didn't take adequate precautions to defend itself against a cyber attack.

The filing claims the company should have been more prepared for an attack, especially considering its networks were previously breached during the 2011 hack of the Sony Playstation.

"Defendant has failed to take reasonable steps to secure the data of its employees from hacking and other collateral attacks despite its having a duty to safeguard its employees' data," the filing read. "Only three years ago, Defendant incurred one of the largest data breaches in history, in which 77 million customer records were compromised."

"In the wake of that data breach, Defendant conceded that a 'known vulnerability' was exploited, and subsequent analysis from the information technology community confirmed that Defendant had failed to put into place even the most rudimentary security protocols," the filing continued.

The plaintiffs are suing Sony on grounds of negligence, invasion of privacy, bailment and violations of multiple California laws that require a corporation to protect the private medical information of its employees and notify them of data breaches in a timely fashion.

They're seeking "an award of appropriate relief, including actual damages, restitution, disgorgement, and statutory damages."

Sony has not yet responded to TheWrap's request for comment.

The company has been hit with several class-action lawsuits stemming from the Nov. 24 attack and vicious threats.

Sony canceled the Christmas Day release of The Interview in wake of those threats, one of which promised a "9/11″-style attack should the movie comedy hit theaters.

On Friday the Federal Bureau of Investigations and President Barack Obama revealed North Korea was in fact responsible for the hacks, data dumps and vicious threats. But the president criticized the studio's decision to shelf the controversial film.

"Sony's a corporation, it suffered significant damage, there were threats against its employees. I am sympathetic to the concerns that they faced," Obama said at a White House Press Briefing. "Having said all that, yes, I think they made a mistake."

Sony Pictures Entertainment's CEO Michael Lynton has since spoken out on his company's behalf: "We have not caved, we have not given in, we have persevered, and we have not backed down. We have always had every desire to have the American public see this movie."

Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.