[ISN] Court Allows Woman to Sue Bank for Lax Security After $26, 000 Stolen by Hacker

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 02:19:14 -0500 (CDT)
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/09/citizens-financial-sued/

By Kim Zetter
Threat Level
Wired.com
September 4, 2009 

An Illinois district court has allowed a couple to sue their bank on the 
novel grounds that it may have failed to sufficiently secure their 
account, after an unidentified hacker obtained a $26,500 loan on the 
account using the customers’ user name and password.

As initially reported by legal blogger, David Johnson, Marsha and 
Michael Shames-Yeakel sued Citizens Financial Bank in 2007 in the 
northern district of Illinois on several grounds, including a claim that 
the bank failed to provide state-of-the-art security measures to protect 
their account.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer refused last week to grant a 
summary judgment in favor of Citizens Financial, stating in her ruling 
(.pdf) that "assming that Citizens employed inadequate security 
measures, a reasonable finder of fact could conclude that the 
insufficient security caused Plaintiffs'conomic loss."

Larry Smith, an attorney for the Shames-Yeakels, told Threat Level that 
he's surprised and happy by the judge's ruling, particularly since the 
negligence claim was not the meat of their case against the bank.

[...]


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Received on Tue Sep 08 2009 - 00:19:14 PDT

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