Remember the security breach that hit Target back in 2013? It was a biggie that saw hackers steal customer data belonging to as many as 110 million people.
Still dealing with the fallout, the retail giant this week reached a settlement with Visa Inc., agreeing to pay $67 million to banks and other firms that issue its cards.
The payout will take care of the costs that card issuers incurred as a result of the hack, which include actions such as sending out new cards and dealing with any resulting fraud.
The agreement was announced by Target on Tuesday, though information on how much it was worth came later in the day from the Wall Street Journal, which spoke to a person with knowledge of the matter.
Target had earlier reached a similar agreement with MasterCard Inc. to pay banks $19 million in costs. However, the card issuers weren’t happy with the amount, leaving the retailer to continue with negotiations in a bid to settle.
In March the retailer also agreed to pay $10 million to Target shoppers affected by the security breach. Court documents showed that customers could each receive up to $10,000 in damages, though each victim has to make a detailed claim to prove their case.
Avoidable?
Shortly before the hack took place, the perpetrators installed malware in Target’s security and payments system that pulled in credit card details from every customer transaction made at the company’s 1700+ stores across the U.S. Reports last year suggested the retailer failed to act on warning alerts from its security partners as the hack got underway.
Target wasn’t the first retail chain to be targeted by hackers and there’ve been plenty of similar incidents since, but the massive scale of the attack and the company’s apparent failure to act on alerts certainly makes it one of the more notable breaches of recent times.
