JEFFERSON CITY – Missouri's new attorney general recently announced a $1.5 million multistate settlement with Dallas-based retailer Neiman Marcus over a 2013 data breach that reportedly involved 1.1 million credit and debit cards.
"The Neiman Marcus Group LLC has agreed to pay $1.5 million and implement a number of policies to resolve an investigation by attorneys general in 43 states and the District of Columbia into the 2013 breach of customer payment card data at 77 Neiman Marcus stores in the United States," Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said in a Jan. 8 press release.
In addition to the monetary settlement, of which Missouri is expected to receive almost $27,811, Neiman Marcus agreed to other "injunctive provisions" to prevent similar breaches in the future, according to the attorney general's press release. Those provisions include compliance with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard requirements, software updates and monitoring network activity and logs, according to the press release.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt
| twitter.com/AGEricSchmitt
"Businesses that collect sensitive data from Missourians must take reasonable steps to secure that data," Schmitt was quoted in the press release. "My office will continue to work on behalf of Missouri consumers to protect their private information."
The data breach that involved malware installed on Neiman Marcus store terminals apparently had been the same used against department store chain Target, affecting as many as 110 million customers, according to a news report at the time by the New York Times.
A Republican and most recently the state's treasurer, Schmitt's appointment in place of outgoing Attorney General Josh Hawley, who was sworn into his new seat in the U.S. Senate on Jan. 3, was announced in November by Gov. Mike Parson.
A St. Louis County native and graduate of De Smet Jesuit High School and Truman State University, Schmitt holds a law degree from St. Louis University School of Law. He served two terms in the Missouri state Senate, from 2009 to 2017, and is a former partner in the Kansas City law firm Lathrop Gage.
Schmitt was sworn in as Missouri's 43rd attorney general on Jan. 3 and the settlement with Neiman Marcus was announced five days later.