Collaborate Disseminate
32% of consumers say they have been targeted by digital fraud related to COVID-19, with phishing emerging as the world’s top digital fraud scheme related to the pandemic, according to TransUnion, the US consumer credit reporting agency. TransUnio… Continue reading A Third of Internet Users Are Actively Targeted by COVID-19 Fraud
Credit bureau Experian has rolled out the 2020 edition of its annual Data Breach Industry Forecast. The report predicts hackers will increasingly target the political scene and activists using deepfake content and other infamous cyber weapons. A top pr… Continue reading Experian expects deepfake content to create geo-political confusion in 2020
A Change.org petition is demanding stronger accountability for Equifax in the 2017 leak that affected 150 million customers. Continue reading 200K Sign Petition Against Equifax Data Breach Settlement
Atlanta-based consumer credit reporting agency Equifax has been issued a £500,000 fine by the UK’s privacy watchdog for its last year’s massive data breach that exposed personal and financial data of hundreds of millions of its customers.
Yes, £500,00… Continue reading UK Regulator Fines Equifax £500,000 Over 2017 Data Breach
Credit monitoring giant Equifax has been hit with the maximum penalty from the UK’s data protection agency for its actions related to the company’s massive data breach. The U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office issued a fine of £500,000 (about $664,000) for failure to protect information tied to 15 million U.K. residents. Equifax announced in October 2017 that along with the 145 million U.S. residents impacted by the breach, a file containing 15.2 million records on U.K. citizens was also “attacked.” That number included over 693,000 U.K. residents that had their email address, phone number, driver’s license number or username and password combination stolen. The fine ties back to the U.K. Data Protection Act of 1998, a law that has been superseded by the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The Equifax breach occurred prior to GDPR’s activation. The fines under GDPR would be extensively larger. Under the new law, companies […]
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Continue reading Equifax fined maximum penalty under 1998 UK data protection law
The day after Halloween, lawmakers at a hearing on the Equifax breach heard scary stories of an under-regulated industry that collects and analyzes vast quantities of data about consumers without their knowledge or consent, stores it insecurely and sells it to the highest bidder. Representatives of the credit reporting industry told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection that those were all campfire tales to frighten children and that searching for a legislative solution would be the governmental equivalent of a snipe hunt. And Republican lawmakers sought to tamp down industry concerns by saying they were still in the information-gathering phase of their work. The hearing, said subcommittee Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, “is an important step toward answering the many questions that consumers are asking.” But the overall tone of proceedings, even from the credit reporting industry’s traditional allies in the GOP, was not at all friendly. “Consumers are getting […]
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Continue reading Congress told ‘the market can’t fix’ poor cybersecurity at credit companies
Hackers who stole Social Security numbers and other poorly secured personal data for 143 million Americans from Equifax also got away with the personal information of nearly 700,000 British citizens as well, the credit reporting company said Tuesday. A computer file containing 15.2 million records of British citizens was “attacked” during the hack, which began in May, Equifax UK Ltd. said in a statement. “Regrettably this file contained data relating to actual consumers as well as sizeable test datasets, duplicates and spurious fields, ” the statement went on. The company said it would be writing to a total of 693,665 consumers whose email address, phone number, driver’s license number or username and password combination had been stolen. They will be offered free credit monitoring and other identity protection tools. The exact breakdown is: 12,086 consumers had an email address associated with their Equifax.co.uk accessed. 14,961 consumers had portions of their Equifax.co.uk membership […]
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Continue reading Equifax: Hackers got personal data on Brits, too
Government agencies have contacted Equifax’s largest competitors to learn more about the potential for cyberattacks on the credit monitory industry as a whole, a senior federal official told CyberScoop. The recently revealed breach at Equifax — one of three multinational corporations that rely on comparable software to manage consumers’ credit reports and other highly sensitive records — caused upwards of 143 million records to be compromised and drew immediate attention by federal law enforcement. But other federal agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security, have been focusing on understanding the threat posed to the larger industry, according to the senior federal official, who spoke to CyberScoop on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing government investigation. The official said that because Equifax’s biggest competitors — namely TransUnion and Experian — also rely on the software like Apache Struts, a popular web server application, the outreach was necessary in order to learn more about the industry’s […]
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Continue reading In wake of Equifax breach, government shines light on entire industry
Equifax, one of the three largest credit agencies in the United States, disclosed Thursday afternoon it’s looking into a data breach that may have affected upwards to 143 million Americans. Continue reading Equifax Says Breach Affects 143 Million Americans