Cyber-Liability Game Changer From The 7th Circuit

The recent ruling in the Neiman Marcus case from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals lowered the bar for defendant liability after a data breach. For potential defendants it should be considered “a siren to sharpen their security,” says Ben Barnow of Barnow Associates. The court in this case recognized that the possibility of harm after a data breach is not remote – you might figure that hackers have gone to a lot of trouble and some risk to pull it off – that the old standard of “impending certainty” of loss to the consumer is not realistic, and that “likely future fraud or injury” is sufficient.