topic Re: Equifax - data breach - 143 million US consumers in Credit in the News

Equifax - data breach - 143 million US consumers

BurgeoningHope — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 13:26:03 GMT

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/07/credit-reporting-firm-equifax-says-cybersecurity-incident-could-potentially-affect-143-million-us-consumers.html

"...Equifax said it discovered the breach on July 29. Leaked data includes names, birth dates, social security numbers, addresses and potentially drivers licenses. 209,000 U.S. credit card numbers were also obtained, in addition to "certain dispute documents with personal identifying information for approximately 182,000 U.S. consumers."..."

(Edited to shorten the headline)

Moderator edit - Posting the link here to check whether you are potentially affected by the breach:

https://trustedidpremier.com/eligibility/eligibility.html

Re: Equifax - data breach - 143 million US consumers

DeeBee78 — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 21:18:28 GMT

@BurgeoningHope wrote:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/07/credit-reporting-firm-equifax-says-cybersecurity-incident-could-potentially-affect-143-million-us-consumers.html

"...Equifax said it discovered the breach on July 29. Leaked data includes names, birth dates, social security numbers, addresses and potentially drivers licenses. 209,000 U.S. credit card numbers were also obtained, in addition to "certain dispute documents with personal identifying information for approximately 182,000 U.S. consumers."..."

(Edited to shorten the headline)

Holy freaking crap. That is almost ONE HALF of the US population. This means you're more likely to be affected than not, since EQ probably has partial information on almost everyone over 18 years old.

Cue massive class action suit.

Cue Equifax trying to offer everyone EQ credit monitoring.

Cue another lawsuit demading credit monitoring from another agency.

Seriously, who can protect you from the people who are supposed protect your identitiy and reputation? People should not stay silent about this.

Re: Equifax - data breach - 143 million US consumers

Hex — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 21:18:44 GMT

The Associated Press
BREAKING: Credit monitoring company Equifax says breach exposed social security numbers and other data from 143 million Americans.

Re: Equifax - data breach - 143 million US consumers

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 21:36:48 GMT

I came here to post about this... so here's another article https://a.msn.com/r/2/AArtjNI?m=en-us

This article says that "[Eq] said there was no evidence of a breach into its core consumer or commercial credit reporting databases." Not sure which 143m were stolen then...

Re: Equifax - data breach - 143 million US consumers

Sevenfeet — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 21:51:42 GMT

This is pretty awful. I'm exposed and i imagine that most on this board are too. As someone who works in IT and has to deal with security measures, my questions are:

1. What was the security breach? (I'm sure they will never discuss details, but I want to know).

2. How was it discovered?

3. Why did it take 3+ months to discover?

4. Did a new patch to close the vulnerability have to be written or did one already exist? If one existed before, how long was it available from the vendor?

4. Was the data encrypted? If not, why not?

5. Was encrypted or unencrypted data passed to hackers?

Data of this type in this day and age needs to be encrpyted with the highest quality encryption available through the entire chain....databases, middleware, reporting systems, webservers, everything. Databases need to be firewalled behind the middleware and the middleware(s) needs to be firewalled from the webserver (which is exposed to the Internet). Then forensic software needs to be installed on all levels to check for strange or unauthorized movement of data from place to place and notify 24/7 staff. Only transactional data can be accessed....no large data dumps without shutting down the link and notifying security.

No system is completely foolproof but Equifax is supposed to have the strongest security regime out there....equivalent to major banks and government agencies. Anything less is a major breach of trust and a class action lawsuit waiting to happen (I'm sure it's already happening). As for Equifax executives, this is the kind of thing that gets people fired (just look at what happened at Target). The initial response seems to be appropriate but there are a lot of unanswered questions.

Re: Equifax - data breach - 143 million US consumers

Hex — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 21:50:34 GMT

Notice that they waited a month before telling anyone. Also notice the news dump during a category 5 hurricane. They have the worst customer service of the CRB's. I hope they go bankrupt and it gets listed on their credit report!!! I hope they go out of business.

Equifax Security Breach

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 21:59:03 GMT

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/07/credit-reporting-firm-equifax-says-cybersecurity-incident-could-potentially-affect-143-million-us-consumers.html

I knew something was going on. I kept getting notifications that my report was being locked and unlocked, change of addresses notifications when there was no change listed, and this week a lift of a security freeze I ever had. i hope this doesn't cause big problems!

Equifax Data Breach

UpperNwGuy — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 22:01:16 GMT

The New York Times and The Washington Post are reporting an Equifax data breach affecting 143 million people's personal data.

Re: Equifax - data breach - 143 million US consumers

Tigremalo2001 — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 22:01:18 GMT

Great post...Equifax better get a shared secured loan and a secured open sky credit card.

Re: Equifax - data breach - 143 million US consumers

Sevenfeet — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 22:12:01 GMT

The month or so lag was probably reasonable. It takes time to do a proper forensic accounting of the situation (and in this case, they hired an outside company). The FBI likely wanted to look at it. The servers in question had to be scrubbed of any malware (probably rebuilt from scratch). Software had to be patched to deal with the original vulnerability and any others that had been discovered since the last patching. All of this likely had entire teams working on the issue round the clock for weeks to solve. I imagine their security and IT teams haven't gotten a lot of sleep lately. And they had to make sure no one from the media was tipped off before they were ready to come forward with the problem and what the action plan was, especially to CNN which is also based in Atlanta.

Still, I'm pretty pissed about the whole thing. And I just got a call from my wife about it. She has Lifelock since she had a major identity theft situation two years ago but I may have to follow her down that path.

Re: Equifax - data breach - 143 million US consumers

MakingProgress — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 22:14:09 GMT

@Hex wrote:
Notice that they waited a month before telling anyone. Also notice the news dump during a category 5 hurricane. They have the worst customer service of the CRB's. I hope they go bankrupt and it gets listed on their credit report!!! I hope they go out of business.

No I hope they fix what is broken and that all of the people who work for them and have done nothing wrong all still have jobs so that they can be productive members of societyl.

Re: Equifax Data Breach

woodyman100 — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 22:18:31 GMT

I read the same article.
Got CC #'s, SSN's, and the whole ball of wax.

New fave phrase;

Three biggest lies;
1. Your data is safe with us
2. Your data is safe with us
3. My goodness that's huge! (Data Breach)

Re: Equifax Data Breach

Financiers — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 22:24:42 GMT

My favorite is, "Hey we just got hacked and 143 million people's data was stolen, but be sure to enter your information on our website to check and see if you were hacked." Totally feels safe to do, haha

Re: Equifax - data breach - 143 million US consumers

Hex — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 22:25:39 GMT

I don't want ANYONE to lose their jobs but I
can tell you from personal experience it won't be American jobs that are lost.

Re: Equifax Data Breach

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 22:27:57 GMT

Screw equifax, they're the worse

Re: Equifax - data breach - 143 million US consumers

Hex — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 22:28:18 GMT

I've never once spoken to an American whenever I have called them.

Re: Equifax - data breach - 143 million US consumers

Hex — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 22:31:36 GMT

Which is not to say I have any bad will for the Indian people. I hope they find better jobs not answering my telephone calls.

Re: Equifax - data breach - 143 million US consumers

Sevenfeet — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 22:32:07 GMT

Equifax is well known (or infamous) for using Indian call centers which can be frustrating for US customers not used to the accents. For me, speaking to India isn't the problem. Ths issue is poor training. I'd rather have well trained off-shore CSRs any day over US based poorly trained ones. But poorly trained off-shored resources just makes the problem worse.

Re: Equifax - data breach - 143 million US consumers

K-in-Boston — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 22:35:32 GMT

On the bright side, they're offering a free year of TrustedID Premier 3 bureau credit monitoring to all consumers, whether affected or not:

https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com/

Re: Equifax - data breach - 143 million US consumers

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 22:35:08 GMT

Great! Another breach!