Equifax has released a statement announcing that 143 million U.S. consumers may have had their personal data compromised. Equifax state the following:
- Unauthorized access occurred from mid-May through July 2017
- No evidence of any unauthorized activity on Equifax’s core consumer or commercial credit reporting databases
- Information accessed includes:
- Names
- Social Security numbers
- Birthdates
- Addresses
- In some instances driver licenses numbers
- Credit card numbers were accessed for 209,000 U.S. consumers
- Dispute documents with personal identifying information for approximately 182,000 U.S. consumers were also accessed
- They have set up the following website: http://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com/ where consumers can see if their information is at risk and also the option to sign up for complimentary credit monitoring and identity theft protection. Update: This isn’t working at all currently as made up information comes back with positive results.
- There is some concern that signing up for TrustedID will waive your rights to participate in a class action lawsuit. More on this at TechCrunch. They have now updated the terms to indicate this is not the case.
This is obviously a pretty massive data breach with some potentially serious repercussions for people if their data has been breached. To make matters worse for Equifax it looks like three of their managers sold stock before the data breach was announced. Discover also offers free social security number alerts and new account alerts that might also be of some use if your data was compromised (or just as a general safeguard). I’ve long argued that the fines and punishments for data breaches aren’t in line with the damage down to individuals if their identity or data is stolen. I also think it’s ridiculous that Equifax can use a subsidiary company (TrustedID) to provide the credit monitoring and identity theft protection.
View Comments (109)
It's very likely that the Russians and North Korean hackers and governments have all of our Social Security numbers and other personal info now.
Welcome to our Russian "Night King" !!!
how do i get in
I checked and it says my info “may have been impacted”.
What the hell does it mean and what should i do?
CAUTION: I have received TWO SPAM emails that look like the read deal. Appears to look like similar formating to the webpage you get linked to by Equifax.
looks like the card approval depts will be taking longer breaks as no one will apply for cards for awhile until the dust settles from this mess.
I checked again just now. The status has changed into "may have been impacted" although it was "9/11" yesterday. Fxxk it.
Equifax is worse than 9/11
Says I'm compromised. They want me to enroll, but I have misgiving in enrolling with these guys when they're responsible for the whole problem in the first place.
That's new, yesterday they just threw us straight to an enrollment date if you might have been compromised.
I continue to maintain a credit freeze on all three agencies. I will now inquire and refuse to do business with lenders who check equifax reports.
Hang those crooks! The najarian brothers just said someone profited from this event by buying put options in large quantities for $.60 each costing about $160k and today those same options are worth over $4 million!! They talked about the timing of the trade to very suspicious like a couple of days after those crooked equifax sold stock. Anybody else mad as hell?
Would take too much energy and we peons can't do anything about it anyway.
My status changed since I checked yesterday. Now it says my info may have been compromised and an option to enroll immediately in the their TrustedID scam so they can avoid getting sued.