Netgear Class Action Says ReadyNAS Fails to Protect Data

Netgear Inc. faces a class action lawsuit alleging that their ReadyNAS device fails to store and protect consumer files.

Plaintiff Michel Sassine filed the Netgear class action lawsuit alleging that the company deleted his files from the Network Attached Storage (NAS) device.

Netgear sells NAS devices under the brand “ReadyNAS.” The devices contain a number of hard drives that connect to a local network and act as a centralized storage hub. This provides a centralized place to store, backup, and share files across a network.

NAS devices typically provide more file protection and backup than other hard drives or external drives, and consumers typically pay a premium price for that protection.

Netgear advertises that their devices have “5 layers of protection” including hardware protection, built-in virus protection, incremental backup copies, bit-rot protection, and the ReadyCLOUD. The ReadyCLOUD is “a free service that allows you to access files on your ReadyNAS…anytime, anywhere, or from any web-enabled device.”

In March 2015, Sassine says he purchased a Netgear ReadyNAS RN104 and uploaded around five terabytes of files onto the device for storage and protection. The files included family photos, videos, and writing projects from college. He alleges that all of his files were deleted in March 2017 due to a deletion command that affected certain customers’ data and files.

The deletion command was allegedly an automatic response by the ReadyCLOUD system to cleanup a connection incident in which the ReadyNAS devices disconnected from the ReadyCLOUD. In a statement released by Netgear shortly after the mass deletion, the company claimed that the automatic response has since been disabled.

Netgear allegedly waited too long to respond to the breach which caused further damage to consumers. The company reportedly did not respond to the deletion incident for five days, leaving consumers with no answers about where their data was. Additionally, Netgear allegedly waited three weeks to release a way for consumers to recover their data.

The Netgear class action lawsuit alleges that because Netgear delayed their response to the deletion, consumers had no chance to recover their data. “Unfortunately, Netgear provided Sassine with an ineffective recovery tool that recovered approximately only 320 gigabytes (GB) of his 5 TB of storage (or approximately only 6% of his files),” the Netgear NAS class action lawsuit states.

Sassine argues that he and other consumers would not have paid the premium price for the ReadyNAS and ReadyCLOUD had they known that their information could be compromised. “Plaintiff and the Class would not have entered into these contracts with Defendant, as opposed to other popular cloud storage services like Google Drive and Dropbox, nor would have paid as much for the ReadyNAS device, had they known that the device would not store and protect their data, as promised,” the Netgear class action alleges.

The plaintiff seeks to represent a Class of individuals and entities whose files were deleted from their ReadyNAS devices. The Netgear class action lawsuit seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages, court costs, and attorneys’ fees.

Sassine is represented by Rafey Balabanian and Lily Hough of Edelson PC.

The Netgear ReadyNAS Class Action Lawsuit is Sassine v. Netgear Inc., Case No. 5:18-cv-01821-HRL, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.