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Comment by 0ct4via | Hacker News Reader

Given the gravity of the issue and the supposed standing of the vendor, 3 days should be plenty time to at least respond -- working days or not.

Additionally, Krebs has stated that Experian has yet another glaring security issue. He's not saying exactly how to do it, or dropping POC in the post.

Given the size and importance of Experian, there's nothing wrong with pointing out this issue, especially when after 4 days they can't even acknowledge an issue this serious.

Krebs stating a vulnerability exists, is more responsible than not disclosing it -- given their importance, and history of security screw-ups, the people have a right to know.

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Unfortunately, this issue lowers the bar for exploiting a months-old vulnerability.

The older ongoing problem is that any person can create a new Experian account with a new email address, and answer a few credit-related quiz to take over somebody's credit file. When doing this Experian will helpfully even offer to unlock the credit file and you can reset security questions etc. All without the consent of the victim. All the "security" systems are bypassed.

This new vulnerability means you need even less information to take over somebody's credit/identity. You can get the answers to their quiz directly from Experian's own systems. That makes it a bigger deal.

But it’s not three arbitrary days, is it? It’s December 24th, 25th and 26th, none of which are working days in the US, and which encompass one of the biggest global holidays of the year.

Surely they should be staffed to mount at least a minimal response to security incidents even over holidays?

A malicious actor wouldn’t wait until business hours.

Do you just love the idea of ruining someone's Christmas?

Experian is here to ruin everyone’s Christmas, that is kind of their gig to be Scrooge. Not a big Krebs fan, but I do enjoy watching him go against some of these big guys with a “Too bad, so sad” mentality. I can’t imagine having to tell someone that what I do for work is track an indebted populous, eck.

You’re aware that most people in the world don’t even celebrate Christmas?

So? Christmas is a public holiday in 80% of countries. It is by some distance the most widely shared global business holiday. And Experian is an American company.

It's a global company and yes some people have to work on holidays. Info Sec for a business like Experian absolutely necessitates 24/7 coverage. I can't believe this is even a debate.

There’s a big difference between getting paged over the holidays for a real incident vs getting paged because Brian Krebs wants to make some internet drama.

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