Target's Revenues Down by $440 million after Data Breach

Taken from:  http://nypost.com/2014/02/26/targets-profits-down-46-after-data-breach/

The article noted:

Target reported a profit drop of $440 million for its fiscal fourth quarter as a result of the credit card breach on Wednesday.

Profit fell to $520 million, or 81 cents a share, from $961 million, or $1.47 a share, a year earlier. Total revenue fell 5.3 percent to $21.52 billion.

The company reported adjusted profit of $1.30 a share, at the top end of its prior guidance range of $1.20 to $1.30 a share.

Data security is a major aspect of IT.  In this case, Target is a big company, but in some cases for smaller company, such a data breach could permanently damage the company and take it into failure.

In many cases, it is expected that the company that has the data breach (i.e. credit card information stolen), must pay for credit monitoring, for restoration / resolution of the breach - paying for the purchases that were made on the stolen cards and more.  Those expenses can be significant.

And ... on the intangible side of things - this damages the companies reputation.

This link: http://business.financialpost.com/2014/02/26/beware-big-brother-culture-will-have-adverse-effect-on-creativity-productivity/

Target quickly went into damage-control mode, launching a full investigation, apologizing profusely and offering some consumers a year of free credit monitoring to compensate for any potential financial data that may have been compromised. But the damage to Target’s reputation had already been done.

So ... to save actual funds and to save reputation - be serious about your information security!!!