The Downside Of Being Breached

Target announced that they were breached in December of 2013 – about 22 months ago.

This week a federal judge certified a class action against Target by a number of banks.  Target says they are “disappointed” by the decision.

This comes a month after Target agreed to pay Visa up to $67 million to settle some of the banks claims, but banks could opt out of the agreement if they wanted to.  Many did opt out.

A proposed agreement with Mastercard fell through several months ago.

None of this has anything to do with the consumer class actions still pending.

This means that unless Target comes to some agreement with the banks, this class action will go to trial.  Likely in a couple of years from now.  After discovery.  Which may reveal the possibly sad state of cyber security in the company at the time.

You may remember that Target was alerted about the malware in their system by FireEye but decided to wait until after Christmas for fear of breaking something.

Regardless of whether insurance covers all these costs (and in Target’s case, they maxed out their insurance coverage long ago, so these costs are coming out of their pockets), this is a huge distraction that has already gone on for almost two years and shows no sign of ending anytime soon.

THIS IS THE DOWNSIDE OF BEING BREACHED!  And why many companies with less resources than Target go out of business after being breached.

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