Equifax Security Breach

552 Words2 Pages

Equifax is a global information solutions company that uses trusted unique data, innovative analytics, technology and industry expertise to power organizations and individuals around the world by transforming knowledge into insights that help make more informed business and personal decisions.
A huge security breach happened at Equifax which exposed sensitive data like Social Security numbers and addresses. The customers don’t even know that their data has been breached. Equifax gets its data from credit card companies, banks, retailers and lenders sometimes without you knowing. The company has found no evidence of unauthorized activity on Equifax's core consumer or commercial credit reporting databases. Equifax has created the website where …show more content…

Equifax said it will send notices in the mail to people whose credit card numbers or dispute records were breached. The company said it found no evidence that consumers in other countries were affected beyond the U.S., U.K. and Canada. Investigation is going on but Equifax hasn’t mentioned any noted information yet. Equifax has engaged a leading, independent cyber security firm to conduct an assessment and provide recommendations on steps that can be taken to help prevent this type of incident from happening …show more content…

Equifax identified a weakness in an open-source software package called Apache Struts as the technological crack that allowed hackers to heist Social Security numbers, birthdates, addresses and full legal names from a massive database maintained primarily for lenders theft. Equifax is proposing that customer’s sign up for credit file monitoring and identity theft protection. It is giving free service for one year through its TrustedID Premier business, regardless of whether you've been impacted by the hack.
Investigation:
The Equifax breach is one of the largest breaches ever. Some other high-profile examples include two breaches at Yahoo -- the bigger one involved 1 billion accounts, the lesser impacted 500 million -- and a hack at MySpace that involved 360 million accounts. Meanwhile, Congressman Ted Lieu, a Democrat from California, sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte and ranking member John Conyers calling for a hearing to investigate the data breach. The House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, a Republican from Texas, also said his committee will hold a hearing on the

Show More
Related

  • Target Security Breach Case Study

    497 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Chairman, President, and CEO Gregg Steinhafel apologized to all Target customers, shared in their frustration, and stated the company is thoroughly investigating the data breach. Steinhafel confirmed that the customers have zero liability for any

    Read More

  • Should Apple Be Forced For Unlock An Iphone?

    855 Words  | 2 Pages

    Issa utilizes statistics to suggest ideas. He says, “The Office of Personnel Management’s security breach resulted in the theft of 22 million Americans’ information, including fingerprints, Social Security numbers, addresses, employment history, and financial records” (Issa). Issa also adds that, “The Internal Revenue Service’s hack left as many as 334,000 taxpayers accounts compromised‑though just this week, the IRS revised that number to o...

    Read More

  • Check Fraud and Check Washing

    1244 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...only hear about the different ways that criminals are committing electronic fraud such as hacking in to somebody’s computer and stealing their credit or debit card information. There are also cases where peoples identities have been stolen and whole other lives have been built on them by another person. It all started with check fraud and although it’s not talked about as much anymore, it is still a very large concern for most business owners and people like you and me. The tips that have been provided for us can help protect us from fraud, but it is up to us to take the extra steps to prevent check fraud. We cannot sign up for check fraud protection the same way we could for credit or debit card protection or to help protect ourselves from identity theft. There are processes in place to help us once we’ve experienced check fraud but it is up to us to avoid it.

    Read More

  • Big Data Case Study

    1865 Words  | 4 Pages

    The author appear to be moderately perplexed by the fact that American state that they are concerned about privacy but they yet disclose personal information to entities. I would offer that the reason many are disclosing the information, is that business will not offer their services or product without the personal information. One can go to another vendor for service, only to have the same problem repeated. Now what is perplexing, is the authors claim that “a significant number, 11%” (Caftori & Teicher, 2002) of the population believes that corporate owners should go to prison for violations of information privacy. I must say, I never thought of 11% of a population as a significant percentage, but I am just a student. More confusion for the authors is when a computer system that handles big data has faulty output. They use the analogy of an airline, and if they lose your luggage and should receive compensation, but this is not the case when the DMV provides faulty data. This should not be perplexing, with the airline an explicit contract is made with the purchase of the ticket. The airline is transport my body and my luggage to the agreed location without damage or loss. Luggage is tangible. The contents are worth x amount of dollars and the airline pays the individual

    Read More

  • Identity Theft and Possible Risk in Technology

    1697 Words  | 4 Pages

    Identity theft has been a major issue of privacy and fraud. In the data breach analysis from the Identity Theft Resource Center (2013), the number of data breaches from the year 2005 to 2012 increased. In 2012, there had been 49% where the data breach exposed people Social Security Number. The data breach of 2012 has a rate of 27.4% caused by hackers. These breaches were commonly from 36.4% businesses and 34.7% health and medical (Identity Theft Resource Center 2013). The number of identity theft varies from physical possession to digital possession. At least one-fifth of trash cans contains papers listing people’s credit card number and personal information. People that throw away their trash mails contain much personal information that is useful to steal someone's identity (Davis, 2002). Technology becomes a need where people use it daily and as a result it has also become a use for identity theft as well. Throughout the years as technology develops so does identity theft. This paper shows the types, methods and technique used for identity theft, and it also examines possible risk of identity theft from current technology.

    Read More

  • The Target Security Breach

    763 Words  | 2 Pages

    Computer crime has been an issue since the beginning of computers. Wherever there is something good, there is always someone who takes advantage of it. This can be seen in cyber crime, which has been on the rise in recent years. According to the Los Angeles Times, the median cost of computer crime to a company per year has risen from $3.8 million dollars in 2010 to $5.9 million. (Rodriguez, 2011) This suggests that computer crime is becoming an even bigger hazard to companies. A recent example of this was the data breach committed against Target in 2013.

    Read More

  • Addressing Cybersecurity: A Call for Federal Privacy Protection

    1586 Words  | 4 Pages

    About 15 million United States residents have their identities and information used fraudulently each year. Along the use of their identities, they also had a combined financial loss totaling up to almost $50 billion. Major companies such as Apple, Verizon, Target, Sony, and many more have been victims of consumer information hacking. In each of the cases, millions of consumers’ personal information has been breached. In the article “Home Depot 's 56 Million Card Breach Bigger Than Target 's” on September 18, 2014, 56 million cards were breached due to cyber attackers. Before the Home Depot attack, Target had 40 million cards breached. Company’s information is constantly being breached and the consumers’ are the ones who end up having to pay the price. If a company cannot protect the information it takes, then it should not collect the information.

    Read More

  • Identity Theft Throughout History

    1355 Words  | 3 Pages

    Identity theft is no new problem in our world. It has occurred for decades and only grows more popular with criminals. Due to our world’s expanding technology, identity theft is becoming easier to commit and harder to detect. Luckily as the criminals technology becomes more advanced, so does out justice system’s technology to help fight the crime. The number of criminals that engage in the fraud and thievery will only grow due to the lucrative nature of the crime, but also will the forces that are established to stop them. This white-collar crime will gain more attention and therefore more laws will be passed to protect the public from becoming victims. With the use of laws, task forces, and the education and awareness of the public, identity theft will be given more attention and focus to hopefully deter future threats from occurring.

    Read More

  • The Home Depot Data Breach Case Study

    1138 Words  | 3 Pages

    Where in 56 million payment cards were stolen and the issues related to the occurrence.

    Read More

  • Target: The Largest Data Breach/Attack

    1217 Words  | 3 Pages

    Riley, M., Elgin, B., Lawrence, D., & Matlack , C. (2014, March 13). Target Missed Warnings in Epic Hack of Credit Card Data - Businessweek. Retrieved from http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-13/target-missed-alarms-in-epic-hack-of-credit-card-data

    Read More

  • Protection of Consumer Privacy in E-Business

    1281 Words  | 3 Pages

    One common torment of companies is that they are not renowned. Consumer personal information, including email addresses and telephone numbers, is a panacea for the companies- it provides a way for them to promote themselves by sending junk email or making phone calls.... ... middle of paper ...

    Read More

  • Identity Theft

    1002 Words  | 3 Pages

    Have you ever received a credit card bill at the end of the month with a ridiculous amount of money needed to be paid that you never spent? This is because of identity theft. The FTC estimates that each year, over 9 million people are affected by identity theft. According to Sally Driscoll, this is because almost anyone with a computer and a slight bit of computer knowledge can pull off identity theft. Experts also claim that identity theft is the fastest-growing crime in the world. Identity theft is a global problem that cannot be stopped without effective measures. The problem is, effective measures are very hard to come by when dealing with identity theft because almost any security protocol can be by-passed.

    Read More

  • Identity Theft Informative Speech

    1175 Words  | 3 Pages

    III. Thesis Statement: Identity Theft is rapidly becoming a national issue because anyone of us could be a victim of identity theft. How we protect our self, keep our information private, identify any signs of identity theft, and report and repair our credit is up to each one of us. We have to be vigilant about our protecting ourselves from criminals.

    Read More

  • Companies, Ethics, and Privacy of Personal Information

    4566 Words  | 10 Pages

    However, the same personal data is being compromised and eroding privacy. Companies have been getting bolder in their attempts to gather, share and sell data. The latest trend is outsourcing data to third party companies for data processing, which can be done at a lower cost. One of the main problems with this approach is that a lot of very sensitive data is being sent, which could be harmful in the wrong hands. Most companies require their customers to "opt-out" to prevent their data from being shared with a company's affiliates. This process requires the customer to explicitly tell the company not to share their data, which is usually in the form of a web site or a survey sent in the mail. These surveys are often thrown away by consumers, so they don't even realize that they're giving the companies a green light to sell and share their data.

    Read More

  • Corporate Accounting Fraud

    1084 Words  | 3 Pages

    In today’s day and age, there is a lot of news that is related to corporate accounting fraud as companies intentionally manipulate their financial statements to show a better picture of their financial health. The objective of financial reporting is to provide financial information about a company to its various stakeholders such as investors and creditors so that these stakeholders can make decisions accordingly. Companies can show a better image of their financial well being by providing misleading information. This can be done by omitting material information from the books or deceitful appropriation of assets such as inventory theft, payroll fraud, check forgery or embezzlement. Fraudulent financial reporting will have an effect on the

    Read More

More about Equifax Security Breach

Open Document