Capital One Settles Cyberattack Lawsuit
- December 1, 2021
Data Breach
Regulator
Regulation
Class-Action Lawsuit
Company
Capital One
Fine
- $ 190 Million
Why it Matters & To Whom it Applies
In December 2021, Capital One agreed to pay $190 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed against it by U.S. customers over a 2019 data breach that affected 100 million people. This settlement comes more than a year after the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency fined Capital One $80 million for the same breach.
Highlights
A software engineer at AWS was behind the attack, which exposed information including bank account details. “While Capital One and AWS deny all liability, in the interest of avoiding the time, expense and uncertainty of continued litigation, plaintiffs and Capital One have executed a term sheet containing the essential terms of a class settlement that, if approved by this court, will fully resolve all claims brought by plaintiffs,” a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia read. In an emailed statement, Capital One said that key facts in the case had not changed since it announced the event in coordination with federal authorities more than two years ago, with the hacker arrested and the stolen data recovered before it could be disseminated oær used for fraudulent purposes.