In April 2011, Sony suffered one of the largest ever Internet security break-ins when hackers stole millions of customers' personal information, including birth dates, email addresses, user names, passwords, log-ins, and security questions. These break-ins occurred just 2 weeks after Sony laid off a substantial number of security personnel responsible for protecting customer personal data. According to claims in one of the lawsuits it is facing, Sony made this reduction despite its awareness that the affected network faced serious security challenges. 6 According to litigation filed in California, Sony spent "lavishly" to protect the security of its own data while failing to do so for customer data. 7