Equifax Data Breach: What You Need to Know

Equifax, one of the world’s largest suppliers of credit information and related services, recently announced a data breach that may have affected as many as 143 million consumers in the United States.

The company went on to explain that “criminals exploited a U.S. website application vulnerability to gain access to certain files.”

At this point, Equifax believes that the access occurred from the middle of May 2017 through July 2017. The information accessed by the criminals includes:

•    Names
•    Social Security numbers
•    Birth dates
•    Addresses
•    Driver’s license numbers
•    Credit card numbers for roughly 209,000 U.S. consumers
•    Dispute documents for roughly 182,000 U.S. consumers

During its investigation, Equifax also came across unauthorized access to personal information for a limited number of Canadian and UK residents.

Equifax Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Richard F. Smith added the following in the press release:

“This is clearly a disappointing event for our company, and one that strikes at the heart of who we are and what we do. I apologize to consumers and our business customers for the concern and frustration this causes. We pride ourselves on being a leader in managing and protecting data, and we are conducting a thorough review of our overall security operations. We also are focused on consumer protection and have developed a comprehensive portfolio of services to support all U.S. consumers, regardless of whether they were impacted by this incident.”

Equifax is taking steps to make things right, including:

•    Establishing a website – www.equifaxsecurity2017.com – to help consumers determine if their information was impacted.
•    Providing credit file monitoring and identity theft protection to all U.S. consumers for a period of one year.
•    Sending notices by mail to any consumer whose dispute documents or credit card numbers were accessed.

This is one of the biggest data breaches ever, with the potential to impact a large portion of the U.S. population. We will be sure to keep you posted on new developments. Finance Globe has started a thread in the forum for discussion about this issue.