The Home Depot has called upon a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit brought about by consumers claiming they were hurt by last year's data breach, reports the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
"All of the claims alleged in the complaint suffer from the same fatal defect found in the vast majority of other breach cases ... they have suffered no actual or imminent economic injury that is fairly traceable to Home Depot's alleged conduct," argued Home Depot in its court filing.
"Their statutory claims fail because they have not identified any deceptive act by Home Depot and do not allege any actual damage flowing from Home Depot’s purported delay in providing notice," it adds.
The Home Depot breach made headlines last September, when it emerged that up to 56 million of the chain's customers were at risk of data theft following a breach, as reported by We Live Security here.
The original consolidated lawsuit accused Home Depot of "overarching complacency when it came to data security" in a 187 page complained, filed back on May 1.
"Notwithstanding the warnings and pleas of many of its employees who recognized the vulnerability of millions of customers’ sensitive information stored in Home Depot’s systems, Home Depot management refused to upgrade its security systems, refused to follow recommendations of information technology (“IT”) employees and experts, and suffered from ineffective leadership in key IT security positions within the organization," the complaint reads.
WABE, Atlanta's NPR radio station, reports that this is the first time Home Depot has responded to the charges from last year's data breach, but the company is still to respond to a separate claim from financial institutions, which filed on May 27 claiming the fraud losses were "in the billions of dollars."
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