Equifax Hack May Have Been Worse Than Initially Reported

Around September of last year we reported one of the largest data breaches in history, as 148 millions people had their information leaked due to hackers. As you may recall Equifax, one of the largest credit bureaus in the country, was compromised by cyber criminals, and a huge amount of vital confidential information was leaked. Anything from social security numbers, birthdays, address histories, and more was turned over to cyber criminals. Allegedly the hack may have been even worse than Equifax initially reported.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the hack may have been worse than reported to the public, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren collected a report and demanded Equifax reveal the full extent of the breach.

“As your company continues to issue incomplete, confusing and contradictory statements and hide information from Congress and the public, it is clear that five months after the breach was publicly announced, Equifax has yet to answer this simple question in full: what was the precise extent of the breach?”

Equifax seems to continue to downplay the situation, telling the CNN Money that “the original list of vulnerable personal information was never intended to represent the full list of potentially exposed information.”

Meredith Griffanti, the spokeswoman for Equifax was quoted by the Associated Press saying “In no way did we intend to mislead consumers.” This is something that Sen. Warren felt to be untrue, and her 5 month investigation into the breach “revealed the depth of the breach and cover-up at Equifax.”

See Sen. Warren’s full report here (PDF)

In addition to all of the information listed prior, the second report mentioned Tax ID numbers, email addresses, and passport numbers. The WSJ confirmed that hackers did access almost all of these elements, which were reported to the Senate Banking Committee. Sen. Warren noted that Equifax is now claiming that passport numbers were not compromised, despite telling the Banking Committee that they were part of the attacker-accessed tables.

A truly unfortunate situation, that could have been prevented. Sen. Warren’s report highlighted the failure of the website, which was neither secure of helpful, to determine if people had their information stolen. This would be blamed on a vendor’s software code by Equifax. With that much information, a cybercriminal could do virtually anything to use someone’s identity.

Cybersecurity is something that is becoming more and more important. With hacks like this, you can really feel how serious things can get in a second. For any company, large or small, leadership should prioritize securing any networks and servers to avoid this type of situation. Superior IT can help. We are able to provide lockdown security for your network, and in the event that something were to happen, we have the ability to regain lost information. Call Superior IT today to talk to someone about ensuring your company’s vital data is never breached.