Firm Pays For Breach Exposing 6 Million Files

A Florida check services firm has agreed to a $975,000 settlement with the Florida attorney general’s office after more than 5.9 million of the company’s customer files were exposed in 2007 through fraud committed by a firm employee.

As part of the settlement, announced this week, Certegy Check Services has agreed to dramatically upgrade its data security technology. It also has agreed to pay $850,000 to cover the Florida attorney general’s investigative costs and lawyers’ fees. And the firm will make a $125,000 contribution to a Florida crime prevention program.

The Certegy records were stolen by William Sullivan, a former Certegy senior database administrator, who sold the stolen records to a direct marketer. Sullivan was fined $500,000 and is currently serving a 57-month sentence in federal prison.

Under the settlement, Certegy — a subsidiary of Fidelity National Information Services— will maintain a comprehensive information security program that assesses internal and external risks to consumers’ personal information and implements safeguards to protect that information.

The settlement follows a separate 2008 agreement that stemmed from a consumer class-action lawsuit filed against Certegy. In resolving that lawsuit, Certegy offered victims credit and bank account monitoring, identity theft reimbursement capped at $4 million and reimbursement of some credit monitoring fees.