Major Equifax Hack

Digerati

Digerati

Moderator
Hardware Expert
Microsoft MVP (Ret.)
Staff member
Joined
Aug 28, 2012
Posts
4,959
Location
Nebraska, USA
equifax hack - Bing

They had 1 job and they blew it. And they knew about in July but just now decide to tell us! :mad7: :censored2: :censored2: :censored2: :mad7: :banghead:

Not happy that it appears my own data was compromised. :( What good is 1 year of free protection? In 1 year after that protection expires, my name, address, social security number, and birth date are all going to be the same as they are today.
 
Last edited:
https://www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo.jsp

Originally, Equifax was charging folks to freeze their credit reporting. This action prevents bad guys from using your credit information Equifax irresponsibly allowed to be hacked. But after much uproar, they now allow you to freeze your reports for free - though I am hearing it is only for 1 month! It should be for life, just as credit protection should be for life.

You can freeze your credit reporting through the above link - however, the site appears to be so swamped, you may have to try several times. Note this freeze only affects Equifax. For a total freeze you also must freeze them at TransUnion and Experian for a full freeze and the latter two are not free.

To find out if your Equifax data was stolen, check here. And please understand even if you never heard of this company, there is a good chance your personal information was still hacked and will be subject to very serious abuse for the rest of your life! :( With the stolen information, which includes your full name, addresses, date of birth, drivers license numbers, credit card numbers, and more) a bad guy can open new bank accounts in your name, for example, commit fraud in your name which then could mean the authorities will come looking for you with arrest-on-the-spot warrants. In 10 years, you could be pulled over for a broken tail light and hauled off to jail for something you did not do!

In related news, 3 Equifax executives are under suspicion for insider trading. The story goes that 2 days after the breach was discovered (well before the breach was announced), those execs sold off $2million worth of stock. The company claims those execs did not know of the breach, but there certainly are "appearance" and "trust" issues here.

More to come, no doubt.
 
To add to the frustration, it appears the vulnerability that was exploited was first discovered way back on March 6th of 2017 and a patch was released just 3 days later on March 9th. But the patch was never applied! This all could have easily been prevented! :banghead:
 
Short of a freeze, you can also place a Fraud Alert on your reports and this is free. This needs only be done at one site and they will alert the other two. I did this at TransUnion and it was easy. But note this only lasts for 90 days so you will have to renew it. I recommend you do this ASAP.

Reminder: file your tax returns as soon as you can – before the bad guy steals your refund.
 
I saw that too but don't think they will escape criminal negligence charges, should they come - and for sure, there should be some charges coming, not that it will help us any. I just worry that many don't understand how serious this is, and how it can impact folks for many years to come.

For sure, if not for the hurricanes, this would have been the top story every night since it first came to light.
 
Now it learn Equifax was actually hacked again, months before the big May attack. But they only notified their "registered" users. They 143 million US victims who's personal information Equifax stockpiles - that is, the general public are not considered "company customers" so they did not bother to tell us. If they had, there would have been yet another opportunity to prevent the big May attack, or at least mitigate it. They were not totally mum about it, but that should have been a wake-up call to make sure their servers were fully updated on March 9th when Apache provided the critical patch that would have prevented the big 143 million victim hack. :(

Sadly, we still have not learned if the data stolen was encrypted but it is believed if it was encrypted, Equifax would have announced that right-away.
 
Wow! It will not stop. Some have called for Equifax to totally close up shop. That might be a good idea.
 
It just seems like these companies are doing absolutely nothing proactively. Instead they are just sitting on their thumbs with their heads stuck where the sun don't shine, letting the bad guys run roughshod over the rest of us and hoping nobody will notice. They only react when their total negligence is exposed by someone on the outside. :censored2: What kind of world are we leaving our kids and grandkids? :noidea: :(
 

Has Sysnative Forums helped you? Please consider donating to help us support the site!

Back
Top