Target lost tens of millions of credit card numbers and paid just over $18 million to settle every lawsuit against them.
People seem to conflate the way they think things should be with the way things actually are.
People seem to conflate the way they think things should be with the way things actually are.
Longer term, this is actually quite possibly revenue-positive for Equifax - they will trick a non-inconsiderable number of people into signing up for their credit monitoring service, and everyone who wants a credit freeze gets to pay $10 (in Illinois at least). That's $1.45B in potential revenue right there! Once Transunion and Experian see the success of this ploy, they may have strangely poorly secured border networks of their own set up invitingly for the retail hacker...
If my SSN and financial history is stolen, someone can impersonate me. They can sign up for bank accounts, loans, credit cards, etc.