Alliance Data Systems Corp could face costs and lost sales of $100 million or more as it tries to recover after hackers stole reams of names and email addresses from its Epsilon marketing unit.
The estimate by technology analysts is slightly less than 4 percent of the Dallas company's revenue last year, but it underscores the rising threat from hackers and comes as Washington considers imposing tougher data-security rules.
The figure is also much higher than the direct costs financial analysts expect Alliance Data to pay for measures such as system upgrades and audits, showing how complex quantifying data security expenses can be.
My email was on many of their lists, this past friday I started getting absolutely SLAMMED with spam. I use to get at most 5-10 spams per day, I now get 100 per hour. I did some tweaking to my spam filter and have eliminated most of them again but wow they must have taken all the emails they stole and put them on www.spamlistforeveryonetouseandabuse.com
