So uh yeah, if you’re in the USA there’s a extremely good chance that hackers have the following information on you.
names
social security numbers
birth dates
home addresses
in some cases, drivers’ license information
This is pretty much the worst hack, literally ever, due to the breadth of information stolen. Whoever engineered this breach has all of the details it takes to take out a new line of credit in someone’s name, file their taxes fradulently, take out a loan. It’s bad.
More reading here:
I know that generally we don’t talk about the latest news here on the p’zone but the impact here is so wide I thought it was important to bring up.
These hacks are basically a forgone conclusion nowadays because companies don’t care to pay for proper network security, there is very little government oversight (if any), and executives are never really held accountable, so the onus of responsibility falls to us rubes at the bottom of the pyramid.
If you’re not sure what to do, here’s a good guide:
I would advise you to not bother to use Equifax’s credit monitoring service. I frankly wouldn’t trust them and I’ve heard say that doing so also locks you into binding arbitration with them.
If you want to check your credit report, the only free place to do so is: https://www.annualcreditreport.com, this is the official one from the Federal Government, don’t fall for schemes from third parties who want your money. You can get your report free from each credit bureau once a year.
Capitalism is a disease friends, stay safe out there.
Oh but the didn’t know about that hack before they did that, goodness no. How could you even say such a thing. Expecting executives to know about something like this, that’s absurd.
There are three major credit bureaus in the United States that are responsible for collecting information about customers who use credit so credit-offering businesses can look up their customers’ credit history. This allows businesses to determine how their customers handle debt and how risky providing credit to them might be. Some businesses that bill customers on a regular basis, like apartment renters, also can look up such information.
Equifax is one of those credit bureaus.
Social security numbers (or tax identification numbers if you are not a citizen) and some other things like birthdays are used to identify individuals whenever they are signing up for most financial things. These are also used when a business report things to credit bureaus.
So this is why a breach at Equifax is a huge deal. To perform their business, they need highly sensitive information about practically every individual who has credit in the United States.
I can’t find anything that says they only got encrypted data. Apparently, Equifax hasn’t said whether the data was encrypted or not. Since they were kinda specific about what data got stolen, I’m inclined to believe that it wasn’t encrypted.
Don’t even use the check tool, it can’t even be verified that it even works, and a bunch of people have put random info into it and gotten the compromised message, so it’s probably just nonsense to point people toward the identity protection service.
