Credit monitoring company Equifax has been hit by a high-tech heist that exposed the Social Security numbers and other sensitive information about 143 million Americans. Now the unwitting victims have to worry about the threat of having their identities stolen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Atlanta-based company, one of three major U.S. credit bureaus, said Thursday that \u201ccriminals\u201d exploited a U.S. website application to access files between mid-May and July of this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The theft obtained consumers\u2019 names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some cases, driver\u2019s license numbers. The purloined data can be enough for crooks to hijack the identities of people whose credentials were stolen through no fault of their own, potentially wreaking havoc on their lives. Equifax said its core credit-reporting databases don\u2019t appear to have been breached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOn a scale of one to 10, this is a 10 in terms of potential identity theft,\u201d said Gartner security analyst Avivah Litan. \u201cCredit bureaus keep so much data about us that affects almost everything we do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lenders rely on the information collected by the credit bureaus to help them decide whether to approve financing for homes, cars and credit cards. Credit checks are even sometimes done by employers when deciding whom to hire for a job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Equifax discovered the hack July 29, but waited until Thursday to warn consumers. The Atlanta-based company declined to comment on that delay or anything else beyond its published statement. It\u2019s not unusual for U.S. authorities to ask a company hit in a major hack to delay public notice so that investigators can pursue the perpetrators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The company established a website, https:\/\/www.equifaxsecurity2017.com\/ , where people can check to see if their personal information may have been stolen. Consumers can also call 866-447-7559 for more information. Experian is also offering free credit monitoring to all U.S. consumers for a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is clearly a disappointing event for our company, and one that strikes at the heart of who we are and what we do,\u201d Equifax CEO Richard Smith said in a statement. \u201cI apologize to consumers and our business customers for the concern and frustration this causes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This isn\u2019t the biggest data breach in history. That indignity still belongs to Yahoo, which was targeted in at least two separate digital burglaries that affected more than 1 billion of its users\u2019 accounts throughout the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But no Social Security numbers or drivers\u2019 license information were disclosed in the Yahoo break-in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Equifax\u2019s security lapse could be the largest theft involving Social Security numbers, one of the most common methods used to confirm a person\u2019s identity in the U.S. It eclipses a 2015 hack at health insurer Anthem Inc. that involved the Social Security numbers of about 80 million people .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Any data breach threatens to tarnish a company\u2019s reputation, but it is especially mortifying for Equifax, whose entire business revolves around providing a clear financial profile of consumers that lenders and other businesses can trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis really undermines their credibility,\u201d Litan said. It also could undermine the integrity of the information stockpiled by two other major credit bureaus, Experian and TransUnion, since they hold virtually all the data that Equifax does, Litan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Equifax\u2019s stock dropped 13 percent to $124.10 in extended trading after its announcement of the breach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three Equifax executives sold shares worth a combined $1.8 million just a few days after the company discovered it had been hacked, according to documents filed with securities regulators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sales, executed on August 1 and August 2, were made by: John Gamble, Equifax\u2019s chief financial officer; Rodolfo Ploder, Equifax\u2019s president of workforce solutions; and Joseph Loughran, Equifax\u2019s president of U.S. information solutions. Bloomberg News first reported the divestitures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a subsequent statement, Equifax said the three executives \u201chad no knowledge that an intrusion had occurred at the time they sold their shares.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The potential aftershocks of the Equifax breach should make it clear that Social Security numbers are becoming an unreliable way to verify a person\u2019s identity, Nathaniel Gleicher, the former director of cybersecurity policy in the White House during the Obama administration, said in an email statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis breach might just have put the nail in the coffin of the idea that we can use personal identifiers like Social Security numbers as security factors,\u201d wrote Gleicher, who now oversees cybersecurity strategy for computer security firm Illumio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to the personal information stolen in its breach, Equifax said the credit card numbers for about 209,000 U.S. consumers were also taken, as were \u201ccertain dispute documents\u201d containing personal information for approximately 182,000 U.S. individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Equifax warned that hackers also may have some \u201climited personal information\u201d about British and Canadian residents. The company doesn\u2019t believe that consumers from any other countries were affected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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