Target reported that the massive security data breach it went through last year greatly affected its image, business, and finances. It also admitted that it now faces numerous lawsuits from banks that seek reimbursement amounting to millions of dollars.
In December 2013, the company announced that its system has been attacked between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15, which compromised data of its numerous customers during the holiday shopping season. Stolen information included names, addresses, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers of some 110 million customers that were all sent to server in Russia.
After further investigation, they found that its security system FireEye Inc. had detected a security breach and alerted their security team. However, those alerts were disregarded as not much information was given.
Though the company has already figured out how it happened, and acted quickly and continuously to clean their system from malware, it is still dealing with the aftermath of the massive data breach.
According to Dallas News, the American retailer giant announced that its chief information officer Beth Jacob has resigned from her post and that it is currently looking for a temporary CIO. The company is also doing an overhaul in its security and technology divisions.
As of March 14, shares of Target closed at $59.36, down by 37 cents. This marked a six percent decrease since the security breach. Profit decreased, as well with its last quarter of 2013 down by 5.3 percent. This is attributed to a decrease in the number of customers. While the company has been recovering from its loss, it expects the business to be down for some time.
The company is also anticipating multiple lawsuits and actions aside from those it is facing now. The new legal actions are expected to be related to its non-compliance with the security industry standards.
