New Estimate Finds Target Breach Costs Banks More Than $200m

February 20, 2014 – A recent Wall Street Journal article analyzed the actual cost impact for financial institutions resulting from Target’s recent massive data breach. The banking sector has taken a hit to the tune of more than $200 million according to the Consumer Bankers Association and the Credit Union National Association.  The estimate is that hackers compromised personal data for 40 million Target customers, requiring banks to reissue cards at a cost of $10 per card on average.  The projected dollar impact assumed in this report only assesses the costs of post-breach response and protection by banks and card issuers, and does not begin to evaluate costs associated with fraudulent use of stolen data for consumers or payments processors nor the cost to Target in reduced revenue and increased employee-hours spent reacting to the breach.  Target says that it has fixed the issues which allowed the data breach. And, looking forward, banks will have more card-replacing to do as they work to meet the October 2015 implementation deadline for EMV enabled cards, which will help protect consumers by incorporating embedded microprocessor chips that provide strong security features and other capabilities not possible with traditional magnetic stripe cards. Click here to read the full WSJ article.

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