Marquis sues firewall provider SonicWall, alleges security failings with its firewall backup led to ransomware attack

Marquis, a prominent player in the fintech sector, has initiated legal proceedings against its firewall provider, SonicWall, alleging that a previous security breach resulted in hackers obtaining sensitive information. This breach is claimed to have facilitated a ransomware attack on Marquis' network. The lawsuit was filed on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, where Marquis is seeking a jury trial. The company asserts that a breach at SonicWall in 2025 compromised critical security details pertaining to Marquis and all clients utilizing SonicWall’s firewall cloud backup service. Satin Mirchandani, the CEO of Marquis, expressed concerns regarding SonicWall's alleged negligence in securing its backup service, which he claims has led to “significant reputational, operational, and financial harm” for the company. This lawsuit follows earlier reports indicating that Marquis intended to seek damages from SonicWall. Based in Plano, Texas, Marquis has revealed that hackers exploited vulnerabilities to steal sensitive information related to customer firewall configurations, including emergency access codes. The complaint highlights that SonicWall allowed unauthorized access to Marquis’s internal network, undermining the very protection that its firewall was designed to provide. The impact of the cyberattack was severe, with Marquis stating that the hackers accessed personally identifiable information of clients from various financial institutions. The compromised data reportedly includes names, dates of birth, addresses, financial account details, and Social Security numbers. A spokesperson for SonicWall has yet to comment on the ongoing lawsuit. The company acknowledged a breach of its systems in mid-September, initially claiming that less than 5% of customer firewall configuration backup files were compromised. However, by October, SonicWall revised this statement, admitting that all customer firewall backup files were indeed stolen during the breach. Marquis alerted affected individuals about the network breach in December 2025, while SonicWall has not disclosed when the hackers first infiltrated its systems. The root cause of the breach remains unclear, but Marquis suggests that a code change made by SonicWall to one of its APIs in February 2025 may have introduced a vulnerability that was exploited by the attackers. Mirchandani emphasized that, although Marquis managed to secure its network swiftly, the investigation revealed that the exposure to threats was a direct consequence of SonicWall's breach and failure to inform Marquis about the potential compromise of their firewall protection. As the litigation unfolds, Marquis hopes to gain further insights into the breach's causes. The extent of the data breach’s impact is still being assessed, with a report to the Texas attorney general indicating at least 400,000 individuals may be affected. This number is expected to rise as additional notifications are processed by various U.S. attorneys general.