Content adapted from this Zerohedge.com article : Source
Equifax is in some hot water. Congress is now looking into Execs "hiding info from public".
Close to 150 million people had their information lifted by hackers.
Equifax said, in a document submitted to the Senate Banking Committee and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, that cyberthieves accessed records across numerous tables in its systems that included such data as tax identification numbers, email addresses and drivers’ license information beyond the license numbers it originally disclosed. -WSJ
The company claims the exposure was minimal.
Senator Warren off Massachusetts is not buying it.
"As your company continues to issue incomplete, confusing, and contradictory statements and hide information from Congress and the public, it is clear that five months after the breach was publicly announced, Equifax has yet to answer this simple question in full: what was the precise extent of the breach?" the letter reads.
Warren's letter then issues four demands to Equifax:
- A full and complete list of all data elements that Equifax has confirmed were accessed by hackers in the breach, and the number of individuals affected by the breach of these individual data elements. Please include information on when Equifax confirmed that taxpayer identification numbers, email addresses, and driver's license issue dates and states were accessed by the hackers.
- A full and complete list of all data elements that Equifax has reason to believe may have been accessed by the hackers, the potential number of individuals potentially affected, and the status of Equifax efforts to confirm if they were or were not accessed.
- A timeline of all Equifax efforts to determine the full extent of the breach, and summaries of any internal reports or information, or reports or information provided to Equifax by Mandiant or any outside entities describing the extent of the breach.
- The process used by Equifax to inform members of the public that taxpayer identification numbers, email addresses, and drivers' license information has been breached.
Equifax is not the only one to get hacked.
In a world of flashing headlines and information overload, let the fact that nearly half of America had sensitive information stolen by hackers - a breach which will have serious and lasting effects on both consumers and banks whose fraud prevention departments will be working overtime for years to come.
Will Congress get to the bottom of this? Equifax is obviously trying to minimize the damage it fesses up to.
Non-adapted content of this Zerohedge.com article:
Is there any point hacking us anymore. I feel like the amount of companies that have leaked my information so far is so large that it would be easier to just get it off the dark web than bothering to hack one of these companies.
That being said we really need a paradigm shift in how our data is being stored.
I am guessing that recovering peoples stolen identities is going to be a big source of employment creating tin the future.
"we really need a paradigm shift in how our data is being stored".....Well said sir! There are many decentralized storage solutions that have been invented in the cryptocurrency space. One that has massive potential is EOS due to it's proposed "free transactions". We didn't have time to organize the internet, it was just born and grew like crazy! However, the decentralized internet has a lot of promise. The Inter Planetary File System (IPFS) is a very exciting protocol that I only wish was around when the internet first began.
Equifax should just admit the mistake that happened for them to be hacked. Offering security to customers has been their top prioity but it seems they were a little incompetent as they had assured customers full protection of their identity, how identity theft happens and how one should recover if he/she has been a victim of identity theft.
Inspite of all this, they got hacked, but that is in the past now. Let them go back to the drawing board and look for the missing puzzle in the security precaution they were providing.. refund customers, admit the mistake that happened, and hopefully they will get better into this business.
Otherwise hiding all this will just affect their image and they will take long to move on from this stage.
They filed a $ 70 billion lawsuit against 143 million people to steal identity and credit information.
For now, the following are alleged:
Right, they got hacked and then did almost nothing to make up for it. They provided some security product they were giving to the people who got hacked for free for like a year or something and then obviously wanting to charge us for using the service after that time frame. Just a money making scheme after they messed up, and now they aren't releasing the info about everything. Some BS.
Wow even worse than many thought...
In the original debates on the Social Security Act, Congressmen were worried about the unique identifier, the social security no., that was necessary to run the system. So it was written into law that it could not be used as an identification number for any purpose other than social security.
"Couldn't be any worse than the breach of privacy the gubmint imposes..."
Like the original whopper that facilitates all this. In the original debates on the Social Security Act, Congressmen were worried about the unique identifier, the social security no., that was necessary to run the system. So it was written into law that it could not be used as an identification number for any purpose other than social security.
Lesson #1: when a law becomes inconvenient and cannot be easily changed, simply ignore it.
Lesson #2: people can ignore reality (like inconvenient laws), but they cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality (identity theft, etc.).
Lesson #3: (yet to be learned, but soon), keep biting people, and they will eventually bite back...hard.
thanks for share @zer0hedge
IMO you shouldn't have to. The esteemed senators on the banking fraud committee should have ordered equifax to "lock" all of this back when this started. If I remember right the execs of the company sold a bunch of stock before this became public, another insult.
I'm pretty sure most of these effected consumers never engaged equifax for anything, their information was harvested and aggregated for profit without their consent and the grubby company should therefore be held responsible for all losses that result from their mishandling of this info on top of covering it up, insider trading etc
Equifax - these people are not fit and proper to do the kind of business they do.
Appropriate punitive damages would be to enjoin Equifax by prohibiting them from using the Internet in the course of any part of the business they conduct. Just allowed to operate the same way they operated before the mid 1980s, i.e. no use of any internets. Upon penalty of jail time for the executives if they breach that order.
good post thanks for sharing...
its really impressive and nice post . thanks for share us I giving upvote and follow !
Thank's for the information.
Nice post..
Wows. İt is wonderful.
@steemcleaners