US regulator can now sue companies for client data breaches
A ruling by the Appeals Court has paved the way for the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") to sue companies for their failure to protect client data sufficiently. &nbsp;This follows a long legal battle by the FTC to hold hotel chain Wyndham Worldwide responsible for data breaches in 2008/9 when the theft of credit card details of 619,000 customers were stolen, resulting in over $10m in fraudulent charges against those credit cards. &nbsp;The Appeals Court ruling means that the FTC is now fully empowered to regulate corporate cyber security.
Wyndham Worldwide's attempt to have a lawsuit by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) dismissed that would make the hotel chain liable for three data breaches over two years that exposed customer payment card information has failed.

Today, the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FTC can move forward with its lawsuit that alleges Wyndam should be held responsible for leaving its customer data unprotected -- with no firewalling and out-of-date, vulnerable software. The agency is calling for the company to beef up security and provide reparations to customers as appropriate.

The ruling in effect gives the FTC the power to regulate the security practices of businesses.

Read more about the latest on the FTC and the court ruling here and here.