Home Depot to Pay $25 Million to Banks in a Settlement due to Data Breach

Home Depot has taken further action to move on from its vast data breach in 2014, which involved hackers stealing credit card and email credentials of over 50 million customers by infiltrating self check-out terminals.

In a fresh settlement with dozens of bank, the retailer has agreed to pay $25 million towards damages they incurred due to the breach, which is one of the biggest in history.

Class members who file legitimate claims will get a "fixed payment award" of around $2 per compromised card without any proof of their losses, even if they have received compensation from another source. According to the settlement documents, financial institutions which can prove their losses may get an additional "documented damages award" of up to 60% of their uncompromised costs. Cutimes.com posted on March 9th, 2017, stating that the settlement amount does not include attorney's fees.

In September 2014, Home Depot announced that hackers stole data of payment card of customers who purchased at self-checkout terminals between April 10th, 2014, and Sept. 13, 2014. The hackers also stole a separate file of email addresses of customers.

The fresh settlement proposing multimillion-dollar is the latest in a series of payouts in connection with data breach of Home Depot. The settlement and related legal measures are important because these show that how payment-related breaches put companies on the hook not just to consumers but also to banks and credit card industry. In fact, court filings reveal that Home Depot has paid much more to the financial industry than to consumers.

In addition to settlement worth $25 million this week, Home Depot has also paid minimum $134.5 million in compensation to consortiums made of MasterCard, Visa and several banks.

In March 2016, Home Depot agreed to pay further $13 million to consumers affected by the data breach along with at least $6.5 million to provide them with 18 months of identity protection services. And that is excluding fees of attorney.

According to the figures in the court documents, the breach has cost at least $179 million to Home Depot. However, the final cost may be much higher because of legal fees and any other undisclosed payouts.

» SPAMfighter News - 3/15/2017