LOS ANGELES — A former director of technology for Sony Pictures Entertainment has sued the company over the data breach that resulted in the online posting of his private financial and personal information.

Lionel Felix's lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court in Los Angeles states he ran the company's infrastructure for Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment from 2001 to 2004. His lawsuit is joined by Michael Levine, one of the company's former technical directors.

The suit seeks class action status for the nearly 50,000 current and former employees' whose data was stolen and posted online by hackers.

Their suit alleges Sony ignored warnings about the security of its networks.

"For decades, (Sony) failed, and continues to fail, to take the reasonably necessary actions to provide a sufficient level of IT security to reasonably secure its employees'" personal information, the lawsuit states.

The suit cites previous hacks on Sony's servers, including a 2011 attack that breached millions of accounts of its PlayStation Network. It also cites a security audit from earlier this year that found faults with the company's electronic security procedures.

In all, eight ex-Sony employees have filed lawsuits against the company this week over the hack, which has been linked to North Korea.

Sony did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit.