14 DAY TRIAL // Last week, on March 24, Green Bank and Trustmark National Bank filed a class action against US retailer Target and Trustwave, the company that was allegedly supposed to protect the information of Target’s customers. The financial institutions have decided to drop the suit.
On March 28, Trustmark National Bank filed a notice of dismissal without prejudice, but it didn’t motivate its decision. Now, according to SecurityWeek, Green Bank of Houston has done the same.
The complaint filed by the banks on behalf of themselves and other financial institutions accused Target and Trustwave of being responsible for the data breach in which 40 million payment cards and the details of tens of millions of people became compromised.
The companies claimed Trustwave was in charge of monitoring and protecting Target’s computer systems. The plaintiffs alleged that Trustwave had failed to identify vulnerabilities on the retailer’s systems just weeks before the attack.
However, Trustwave’s CEO Robert McCullen clarified that Target had not outsourced its data security or IT obligations to his company.
“Trustwave did not monitor Target's network, nor did Trustwave process cardholder data for Target,” McCullen explained.
It’s uncertain if McCullen’s clarifications had anything to do with the banks’ decision to drop the suit, but it might have. It’s possible that they have realized that many of their allegations were incorrect.