A recent court decision sided with a bank over a firm controlling escrow accounts.
Missouri-based Choice Escrow and Land Title LLC sued Tupelo, Miss.-based BancorpSouth to compensate it for $440,000 heisted from the bank in 2010. Miscreants compromised online banking credentials and in one transaction had the money wired to an account in Cyprus, according to a report by Brian Krebs.
Choice Escrow argued that because BancorpSouth allowed two password-based options in its transfer service, it failed to meet protections required by the FFIEC.
However, the court found that Choice was advised that two-factor authentication was the preferred transfer method, and so an appeals court upheld a lower court ruling in the bank's favor.
The firm may now be liable for the bank's legal fees, a signal that may deter firms in the future from attempting to recover bank losses related to cyber heists.
