Equifax data leak could involve 143 million consumers

Techcrunch ^ | 9/7/2017 | Ron Miller

[granite]

Security data breach equifax Equifax data leak could involve 143 million consumers Posted 25 minutes ago by Ron Miller (@ron_miller)

Data leaks have become so commonplace that it’s incredibly easy to become numb to them, but credit reporting service Equifax announced a doozy today that when all is said and done could involve 143 million consumers. This is bad.

It was a treasure trove of information for the bad guys out there and included Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver’s license numbers. As though that weren’t bad enough, 209,000 people had their credit card info leak and the breach also included dispute documents with personally identifying information from 182,000 consumers.

The information came mostly from US residents, but a percentage also involved UK and Canadian citizens and the company is working with authorities from all of these countries.

Equifax reports that it discovered the leak on July 29th and took steps to stop the intrusion. It then hired a cybersecurity firm to determine the extent of the intrusion and what damage was done. The company reports that it has involved law enforcement, but it’s not clear at this point how the intruders entered the system or exactly what they took.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

Equifax is a wretched company. I had a credit card that I never made a charge on. I went overseas and when I returned I found that Equifax reported that account was delinquent and lowered my credit rating. I contacted Equifax, who wrote back that they had “investigated” and the negative report on me was true. I contacted the bank, who told me they never reported that my account was overdue. Equifax still refused to correct my credit history, and shamelessly lied about it. You would think that one of the “consumer protection acts” would do something about such sleazy credit reporting companies. Actually, look who was writing the laws: creatures like Barney Frank.

[DoughtyOne]

I’ve been quite lucky with my credit.

The accounts don’t seem to get screwed up, and they report out rather accurately.

I do keep tabs on them.

Other people seem to have nightmare stories to tell.

I feel for you folks. You’re dealing with a conglomerate, and it’s very difficult.

[usconservative]

The last company I worked for replaced its engineers with kids from India and a few from Europe. They were cheap, but couldn't make anything that worked.

BINGO! There's the problem right there. The bank I work for currently says they can hire five Indian's for the price of one American yet the problem is they cannot build anything that works and they don't know our systems.

Probably why they keep old (55) farts like me around. I know how shit works, still know how to engineer and design well enough that I can pass the coding off to someone else to do the grunt work (coding and unit testing.)

Not that I'm in a hurry to retire, but it's gonna be sweet when I do.

[John S Mosby]

Round about May to July when this breach happened, got an email from american express (or so they said) to tell me the good news about points being awarded to the card for use with Uber and with Lyft and isn’t that great etc., and did so by charging the card $1 each for Uber and Lyft to “start your account”.
Contacted Miss or Mrs. Dr. Bombay in Mumbai at the Amex call center and demanded they remove the charges and any affiliation with either outfit. Response was to say that Amex was not doing this.... so this card must have been “sold” to whomever was jacking around with Amex, Uber and Lyft with information. Was hopping mad, and shut down the card right away, with new number card sent 24 hours.

Pretty sure the breach enabled someone to sell the info to someone pushing this crapola, and doing it through google (no surprise).

Any one else have this happen? Allowed as how if travelling and need a “ride” usually have a driver provided or my own self, and will never want my info shared with these two orgs.

[SkyDancer]

Checked into a motel on a flight and next day a note from Amex denying a charge. I looked to see where the Indian motel manager tried to charge a purchase in India for 7,500 in Indian money. Amex wouldn’t tell me the result of their investigation but I sure wished that guy was fired or the motel put on a list of fraud sites. It was a motel in Lincoln, NE.

[usconservative]

I cancelled my Amex account back in 1998'ish over something to do with packaging and selling my information to their "trusted providers" or some such nonsense and haven't had one of their cards since.

As much as I hate Bank of America (having worked for them in the past .....) I will say that anytime I've had to call with an online banking question the person I'm connected with is always here in the U.S.A. Last time I asked where the person helping me was, they replied North Dakota. Prior to that it was someone in Montana. Based on the lack of punjabi accent, I'd say that's exactly where they were.

[RayChuang88]

Has Equifax bothered to contact the “customers?”

Equifax will likely contact the banks and credit card issuing companies first. That's why I monitor my bank and credit card activity on my cellphone at least once a day. I wouldn't be surprised within a week my current cards are cancelled and a new ATM check card from my bank and a new credit card from Capital One. And Google and Yahoo! may ask me to update my login credentials.

[Grampa Dave]

Has anyone been able to log into the Lifelock site?

The site times out when I try to log in.

[Aliska]

http://qctimes.com/news/local/four-things-equifax-hack-victims-can-do-to-protect-themselves/article_cb584f92-a0fc-5288-a8b7-60f3c8428340.html

Maybe there was a link in the article posted here; I just read in my hometown paper webpage. There is a link in the article linked above I read to a consumer information page where I checked my and my daughter's data, but we didn't sign up for the "plan".

I figured I was in their database because I've had credit checks run and recently applied for raising the limit on my one and only credit card.

Tons of people can be in their database without even knowing.

[gattaca]

bmp

[Grampa Dave]

Re: Equifax hacking and break in

I use Norton and Lifelock.

This morning, I got an email from Norton the Equifax hacking and break in. That email allowed me (hopefully others) to go to a site that checks if your emails are in hands of known criminals.

I can’t post my email because of personal data on it. According to Norton, our emails are safe via that personal email/link.

However, the link below worked for two neighbors, non Norton Customers from different homes to check out if their email had been hacked.

If you get a reply that their server is down, wait a few minutes to then try again. That worked for both neighbors. They have to be getting swamped by their customers and equifax’s.

https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-emerging-threats-143-million-people-exposed-in-equifax-data-breach.html

[granite]

Thank you.

[Fhios]

Oh, I’m a customer is it? I thought you were just spying on me and gathering information to sell to others.

[Reno89519]

Yes, if we are customers, how do we quit, opt out, have them remove our data?

[usconservative]

According to their SSN checker, the bastards at Equifax didn't protect my information and I was "exposed."

So here's a quick article on how to Freeze Your Credit Report at all three Credit Reporting Bureau's.

This is really the ONLY truly effective way to stop anyone who steals your identity from opening up credit cards, taking out loans, or otherwise using your good name to obtain credit.

The article gives both the Websites and Phone#'s of all three credit reporting agencies with instructions on how to freeze your credit report.

The cost is $10 per credit agency to freeze your credit report which to me was peace of mind. The "downside" is that there's also a cost any time you want to un-freeze your credit report to obtain credit or allow a credit check for things like buying a car, opening a new credit card, etc..

I have no need to do those things at the moment so I felt "better safe than sorry" to freeze all three credit reports.

While I recommend reading the article because it does contain good information, here's the phone#'s for each Credit Reporting agency. It's a simple matter to follow the phone prompts to freeze your credit report, have a credit card handy to do it:

Equifax: Freeze Your Equifax Credit Report, 1-800-685-1111 (NY residents 1-800-349-9960)

Experian: Freeze Your Experian Credit Report, 1-888-397-3742

TransUnion: Freeze Your TransUnion Credit Report, 1-888-909-8872

[Neoliberalnot]

I would venture a guess that Facebook is more a threat to privacy. The personal information revealed on Facebook is a more serious threat to identity theft.

[Neoliberalnot]

Facebook dwarfs all of them combined.

[Terry Mross]

I went to the website and followed the prompts. It said I “may have been compromised”. When I went through the steps it wanted me to sign up for identity protection. And it asked for my SS #. You’d think if they know I’ve been compromised they’d HAVE my SS #. I stopped the process. It’s a scam!