Worst US Consumer Data Hack Ever? Equifax Confesses
Your data was likely stolen. Here’s what you can do to protect yourself even after the hack, and Equifax doesn’t want you to do it.
Equifax, as a consumer credit bureau, collects financial, credit, and other data on every US consumer. It has names, birth dates, social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, mortgage data, and payment history data, including to utilities, wireless service providers, and the like. It collects data on bank balances, loan balances, credit card balances, credit card purchases, and myriad personal details. It has massive digital dossiers on every consumer in the US and in some other countries. And it sells this data to other companies, such as banks, credit card companies, car dealerships, retailers, and others, as a routine part of its business model. That’s how it makes money.
But when someone breaks in and steals this data without paying Equifax for it, well, that’s a huge deal. And it is.
Turns out, Equifax got hacked – um, no, not today. Today it disclosed that it had discovered on July 29 – six weeks ago – that it had been hacked sometime between “mid-May through July,” and that key data on 143 million US consumers was stolen. There was no need to notify consumers right away. They’re screwed anyway. But it gave executives enough time to sell 2 million shares between the discovery of the hack and today, when they crashed 13% in late trading.
Given the quantity and sensitivity of the stolen data, it may well be the biggest and worst breach in US history.
That stolen data “primarily includes”:
- Names
- Social Security numbers
- Birth dates
- Addresses
- “In some instances,” driver’s license numbers.
In addition, the stolen data includes:
- Credit card numbers of around 209,000 US consumers
- “Certain dispute documents with personal identifying information” of around 182,000 US consumers.
- “Limited personal information for certain UK and Canadian residents.”
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