Cybersecurity

Target Agrees to Pay $18.5 Million to End Data-Breach Probes

  • Agreement is the largest multistate settlement in history
  • Hackers obtained personal data of millions of Target customers
Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

Target Corp. agreed to pay $18.5 million to settle investigations by dozens of states over a 2013 hack of its database in which the personal information of millions of customers was stolen.

It’s the largest multistate accord ever reached over a data breach, according to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The hack, which occurred during the busy holiday shopping season in late 2013, affected more than 41 million customer payment-card accounts and exposed contact information of more than 60 million customers.