Target Loses Major Ruling in Breach Suit

A district court judge has ruled that five financial institutions may move forward with a class action lawsuit against Target for the holiday-season 2013 data breach that compromised personal information of millions of consumers. The judge also struck down Target’s assertion that, because reissuance wasn’t legally required after the breach, it should not bear the banks’ costs of reissuance. “What Target suggests is that, because there was no requirement to act, financial institutions should have done nothing in the face of dire alerts regarding the data breach issued by the card-issuing companies and by Target itself and the known potential consequences for the institutions’ consumers,” wrote Judge Paul. A Magnuson. Target had already settled with MasterCard for $19 million, and settled with Visa over the massive cyber lapse.