LabMD gets another shot at defamation claim against 'extortionate' infosec biz

LabMD, the embattled and now defunct cancer-testing company, will get another chance at suing security firm Tiversa for defamation following an appeals court ruling.  The testing laboratory has long alleged that: Tiversa illegally obtained a 1,178-page computer file containing confidential data on more than 9,000 LabMD …

[Pascal Monett]

No honor between thieves, then ?

It seems that Tiversa was a front for a bunch of miscreants playing "ethical" hackers, but with the intent of extracting money from another bunch of incompetents pretending to do medical analysis.

Smells like Theranos. It would seem that this is a trend.

In any case, I'll be enjoying the popcorn.

[John69]

Surely if Tiversa was able at access this document then LabMD was as guilty as if the document had been put on bittorrent? If their security was so bad that Tiversa could access the file it was only luck that hackers did not make it available. Like claiming drink driving is fine as long as you do not kill anyone?

[Jimmy2Cows]

Doesn't excuse Tiversa's behaviour. To follow your driver analogy, is stealing a car acceptable if the driver leaves the keys inside and the door unlocked?

[Swarthy]

Or stealing a car is acceptable if the door isn't locked "enough" - I mean, it's child's play to slip in a BP cuff to wedge the door open enough to fit a slender pole through and flip the lock.

We don't know the security LabMD had in place, but we do know (from the whistle blower) that Tiversa had exfiltration experts who acquired data from many companies to extort. We can assume from LabMD's response of "there is no leak, we don't need your services" to Tiversa that they had enough security to at least allow them to see if files had gone on walk-about.