https://www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo...
https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze/place-credit-freeze
To set up a security freeze with TransUnion, please visit our online form. You should be prepared with the following types of information: 1. Your full name, including middle initial and suffix, such as Jr., Sr. II, III 2. Social Security Number 3. Date of birth 4. Current address 5. All addresses where you have lived during the past two years 6. Email address 7. A copy of a government-issued identification card, such as a driver’s license or state ID card, etc. 8. A copy of a utility bill, bank or insurance statement, etc.
So, if I hack TU, all I need to do is get the data of the people who asked for a credit freeze.
The problem is these companies, who non of us ever chose or nominated to collect our data, are careless with our PII. And until some accountability is added into the system, this will continue.
I want to see Equifax's CEO, CTO, CSO and anyone who ever saw a report saying "we need to invest more in security" and ignored it, to pay. Preferably with their jobs.
Nope. Ain't gonna happen. Financial crime pays, big time! No one goes to Jail. They usually have an investigation followed by a hearing in Congress (if it is "BIG" enough), then come back and pay a fine. Media will report the fine as "MILLIONS OF $" but the fine hardly makes a dent in the Bank / Financial institute's coffer.
W.r.t. this particular situation, here's a story that just broke.
Three Equifax Managers Sold Stock Before Cyber Hack Was Revealed (bloomberg.com) => https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15196309
It's called INSIDER TRADING.
Externally, though, I want Equifax to have to pay a fine for every individual whose information was compromised. Identity theft can easily cause five figures worth of damage, so $10k per individual would be fair. Maybe as a warning shot we could lower this to... $1k? $100?
That's the only way to properly align incentives so companies will proactively defend against attacks like this.
No doubt fraudsters impersonating you is a hassle and you must spend some time and money dealing with it if you are targeted, but do not lose sight of why it happens and who is ultimately responsible.
If a "Too Big to Fail Bank" fails, we all pay. If a credit union in Utah messes up, their customers pay. Let banks compete on operational excellence.
Well, maybe not expect. This is America... I expect infuriating golden parachutes. But I certainly hope for criminal charges and jail time.
As someone who has had their info leaked by two universities before, both of whom subsequently paid for multiple years of credit/fraud protection, the sheer pain and stress of having random credit cards frozen and need to be replaced is worth far more than that dollar amount of my time. This is potentially messing with people's livelihoods with long term lasting effects.
If monetary sums are given out, then I hope a fair amount is given out instead of a warning shot. Those tiny figures won't help at all and effectively send the message that companies are more important than the people they serve.
More seriously, this is a breach big enough that Equifax should honestly no longer exist as a company. So call it $100/incident, and I'm happy. Other agencies would still exist, and, although they're just as terrible, it might get them to kick their asses into high gear to fix their security.
Maybe the whole commercial enterprise of credit reporting (and identity verification) needs to be dramatically reworked in a more modern, sane design, with different governance and oversight.
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This whole system is so fucked.
Equifax Announces Cybersecurity Incident Involving Consumer Information
[Equifax CEO statement] https://youtu.be/bh1gzJFVFLc
No Evidence of Unauthorized Access to Core Consumer or Commercial Credit Reporting Databases
Company to Offer Free Identity Theft Protection and Credit File Monitoring to All U.S. Consumers
September 7, 2017 — Equifax Inc. (NYSE: EFX) today announced a cybersecurity incident potentially impacting approximately 143 million U.S. consumers. Criminals exploited a U.S. website application vulnerability to gain access to certain files. Based on the company’s investigation, the unauthorized access occurred from mid-May through July 2017. The company has found no evidence of unauthorized activity on Equifax’s core consumer or commercial credit reporting databases.
The information accessed primarily includes names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver’s license numbers. In addition, credit card numbers for approximately 209,000 U.S. consumers, and certain dispute documents with personal identifying information for approximately 182,000 U.S. consumers, were accessed. As part of its investigation of this application vulnerability, Equifax also identified unauthorized access to limited personal information for certain UK and Canadian residents. Equifax will work with UK and Canadian regulators to determine appropriate next steps. The company has found no evidence that personal information of consumers in any other country has been impacted.
Read More
Edit: I'm abroad and just tried through a VPN and it worked. Don't know why I tried without it ...
The issue here is likely related to business units that were acquisitions, with the breached product in question having been developed pre-acquisition by a code farm staffed by interns in some developing nation. I spent a few years trying to unfuck some of those messes and moved on.
It's more a problem with their reckless growth over the last decade than anything. (ed) Due diligence is obviously lacking, but I can personally attest that nobody in senior leadership there willfully ignores matters of security once it becomes known.
At any rate - I don't care. I never gave Equifax permission to collect my personal data. I certainly never gave them permission to store it in a way that it can easily be hacked. If you buy a 3rd party company, "unfuck" and harden their software BEFORE you let the data flow in.
Allowing data to slip out is negligent. If you're in the army, or the intelligence community, you get punished for this. It's about time the private sector felt some sort of accountability.
There is no reason beneficial to consumers to be collecting intelligence of this nature.
> The company has found no evidence of unauthorized activity on Equifax’s core consumer or commercial credit reporting databases.
Since core business was unaffected (nobody hacked the mainframe), I guarantee you some crappy product they acquired got compromised.
And like it or not, you do give them permission to collect your personal data every time you authorize a creditor, utility or employer to run a credit check. Never sign up for utilities, loans, credit cards or get a job and then you'd have a case for privacy.
I guess choosing not to prioritize security (vs profit or whatever) when making acquisitions is different than just ignoring it entirely.
Suddenly letting a bunch of untrusted, poorly audited code run on your infrastructure is itself a massive security breach. And even that doesn't explain how data was extracted for two months with no one noticing.
That's not nearly enough, considering the reach and impact this could potentially have. These people need to be getting life prison sentences before security is finally taken seriously enough by executives.
S-O made sure that when a C-level type guy signs a report, he knows his ass is on the line in case an illegal transaction just occur under his nose. If your company deals with PII, I want that data to be treated as important, if not more important, then company's funds. If you lose it, and you had any say in security (or lack thereof), you should do time.
Sure, but TU already has all the above information anyways.
To what end? As has been pointed out they have all that info anyway so it's not like you're making the situation worse.
But more importantly, if your credit is frozen who cares? What are they going to do with your SSN? Get a loan? Get a CC? Buy a house?
That's the point of a freeze, it makes your PII less valuable.
The actual concern is about the PIN. Because surely they could go through the trouble of PIN recovery to unfreeze your credit and then make use of it. But considering the numbers game, its not worth their trouble vs all the unfrozen accounts.
No. With jail. And go bankrupt.
The Equifax site appears broken in at least some browsers. Transunion wants me to sign up for an online account, and Experian charges a $10 fee in my state to place a freeze.
All three want to collect my name, DOB, SSN, etc. _again_ in order to sign up.
This is complete and utter BS. Credit reporting agencies are one of the greatest/worst rackets in the modern financial system.
It's almost funny, in a way. What, so I can become affected if I'm not already?
Exactly. There's no shot this "PIN" is like one-way a encryption passphrase. There is definitely a way around it.