Home Depot Agrees To Pay For 2014 Credit Breach

(RTTNews) - Home Depot has agreed to pay $25 million and strengthen its data security practices to settle a lawsuit filed by financial institutions after a 2014 data breach that affected account details of 56 million customers.

The company said the offer was not an admission of liability and was being provided to expedite a resolution of the matter.

Home Depot agreed to pay $25 million to financial institutions affected by the data breach after years of litigation.

In September, 2014, Home Depot announced that its payment data systems had been breached. Investigation revealed that hackers placed malware on Home Depot's self-checkout kiosks in stores across the country, allowing them to steal customers' personal financial information, including names, payment card numbers, expiration dates, and security codes.

The stolen information was then sold over the internet to thieves who made massive numbers of fraudulent transactions using the payment cards details. Financial institutions were forced to cancel and reissue the compromised payment cards to mitigate the damage, reimburse their customers for fraudulent transactions, and otherwise incur substantial out of pocket expenses in responding to the data breach.

"Credit unions and their members have unfortunately borne the brunt of lax merchant data security standards. This settlement would be a step toward making them whole again. We believe this settlement represents one of the better outcomes in data breach litigation," said CUNA President/CEO Jim Nussle.