Massive, Massive Data Breach at Credit Reporting Firm Equifax May Reveal Private Information, Including Social Security Numbers, About Almost Every Adult in America

143 million may now be exposed to full-on identity theft (and theft of actual money, I'd assume).

Credit reporting firm Equifax says cybersecurity incident could potentially affect 143 million US consumers

Equifax said data on 143 million U.S. customers was obtained in a breach
The breach occurred on July 29

Personal information including birth dates, credit card numbers and more was obtained in the breach

Equifax Inc., which supplies credit information and other information services, said Thursday that a cybersecurity incident could have potentially affected 143 million consumers in the U.S.

...

Equifax said it discovered the breach on July 29. "Criminals exploited a U.S. website application vulnerability to gain access to certain files," the company explained.

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."

...

Equifax said it is now alerting customers whose information was included in the breach via mail, and is working with state and federal authorities. Its private investigation into the breach is complete.

You can sign up for credit monitoring at www.equifaxsecurity2017.com -- I assume this will be offered freely to those Equifax has helped harm. But I don't know.

This is enormous.

If a foreign power is discovered to be behind this... I don't even know what would come next.

posted by Ace at 05:06 PM

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