* US has charged five people over the December hack
* Judge sets September date for final settlement approval
hearing
By Basil Katz
NEW YORK, June 27 (Reuters) – The global security analysis
company Strategic Forecasting Inc will settle a class action
lawsuit brought by one of its customers over a crippling attack
by hackers who stole data of clients including Henry Kissinger,
court documents show.
U.S. District Judge Denis Hurley in Central Islip on New
York’s Long Island earlier this month gave his stamp of approval
to a proposed settlement in a case that was filed in January.
Stratfor, as the Austin, Texas-based firm is known, was
breached in December by hackers affiliated with the Anonymous
group who published lists of hundreds of thousands of email
addresses belonging to subscribers along with thousands of
customer credit card numbers.
The lists included information on people including former
U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle, former Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger and former CIA Director Jim Woolsey.
U.S. federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged one
person in the United States and four Irish and British men with
the hack. [ID: nL1E8G2MOI]
By giving his preliminary approval to the settlement, the
judge granted class action status to the underlying lawsuit.
In his June 14 order, the judge said a class member, for
purposes of qualifying for the settlement, was any person or
company who was a current or former Stratfor subscriber as of
Dec. 24, 2011.
Under the settlement terms, Stratfor does not admit any
“wrongdoing, fault, violation of law or liability of any kind.”
A spokesman for Stratfor did not immediately return a request
for comment.
The settlement called for Stratfor to offer class members
who opt in to it one month of free access to its service, worth
$29.08, and an electronic book published by Stratfor called “The
Blue Book,” priced at $12.99. The two together may cost Stratfor
approximately $1.75 million, according to estimates in the
settlement.
The settlement also calls on Stratfor to pay for a credit
monitoring service for class members who ask for it, as well as
to continue paying for additional security to protect its
networks. A $400,000 lump sum will go to paying plaintiff
attorneys and various fees.
Once the settlement is given final approval, Stratfor agrees
to share any amount it recovers from its insurer over the
breach, the settlement documents said.
Stratfor describes itself as a subscription-based publisher
of geopolitical analysis with an intelligence-based approach to
gathering information.
The attorneys appointed by the judge to be the lead lawyers
for the class did not immediately respond to a request for
comment. Their client, David Sterling of Sterling & Sterling
Inc, is a New York-area insurance broker.
The judge set a final approval hearing, known as a fairness
hearing, for Sept. 28.
The case is Sterling et al v. Strategic Forecasting, Inc. et
al, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, No
12-00297.
(Editing by Eric Walsh)
