Security Experts Weigh in on Heartland Breach; Settlement Not Enough According to Lawyers

Written on January 19, 2010 – 11:23 am | by admin

It was around this time a year ago that the Heartland breach was publicized. At that time it announced that unknown intruders had broken into its systems and stolen card data. What was astounding about this news was that 130 million credit and debit cards were believed to have been compromised, making it the biggest ever data breach involving payment card data. Well, it’s one year later and what have we learned? Thankfully our friends at BankInfoSecurity.com just came out with this article that tries to answer this question.

In other Heartland-related news, the lawyers representing financial institutions in the data breach lawsuit against are calling a recently proposed $60 million settlement offer from the company as way too meager. In a statement released on Wednesday, the lawyers said the proposed settlement would only pay banks and credit unions “pennies on the dollar,” while releasing Heartland and other potentially liable parties from further legal action. Read more here from the Credit Union Times.

So, we believe that the real lesson learned here is protect yourself from data breaches. Indeed this is a very simple concept and perhaps easier said than done. But there are the many tools, technologies and process to protect customer data. And, wouldn’t you rather make this investment, as opposed to paying out a settlement?

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