ATLANTA–Equifax has agreed to a $5.5-million settlement with financial institutions as the result of the company’s massive 2017 data breach. The funds are to cover the costs of re-issuing plastic cards following the hack of data that involved approximately 147-million Americans.
CUNA filed a lawsuit against Equifax in October 2017.
“Credit unions have borne substantial costs as a result of this massive data breach, and the settlement offers recourse on the path toward making affected credit unions whole again,” said CUNA President/CEO Jim Nussle. “Breaches like this are occurring on a regular basis, and the only thing that will prevent them in the future is a strong national data security standard that holds all entities accountable. CUNA and the Leagues look forward to continuing our engagement with Congress to enact robust data security requirements for all who handle consumers’ personal information.”
According to CUNA, the Settlement Class will be limited to financial institutions that had alerted-on payment cards as a result of the breach. Class members will be permitted to make claims for losses attributable to the alerted-on payment cards as well as damages they suffered resulting from their customers’ personally identifiable information (PII) exposure, CUNA said.
For class members, the settlement will provide up to $4.50 per alerted-on payment card as well as up to $5,000 per financial institution for documented damages claim resulting from PII theft for class members.
Equifax has also agreed to pay at least $25 million to strengthen data security measures over a two-year period and comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.