Ha, you may not know about them, but they know a shirtload about you. In a nutshell, they are one of the three major US credit bureaus...and are generally aware of
any loan, credit card, mortgage, (even applications) you've had...every time you apply for a loan or credit card, the lending institution checks with one of these three jackals
to see what you've been up to. They each have numerical scores for you. If you and Ted Kaczynski have been in the woods together without ever taking out a loan or credit card, you could be in the clear. Guessing that's not too likely, your Lordship!
Yep. We've never knowingly interacted with Equifax. My wife checked their website and, sure enough, our records "may have been compromised". I haven't yet found an alter-ego to be shipping Rolexes to Mumbai or Moscow, but evidently it can now happen 👍🏻
In retrospect I maybe should have taken that Kenyan prince up on his offer to ship me a few millions dollars worth of diamonds in exchange for my bank account info...
IMO, this is the worst financial data breach in U.S. history. Heartland affected almost as many Americans (~130 million), but it did not expose as much personal information (mostly only debit and credit card numbers). Unfortunately, the Equifax breach included names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers, and even some driver's license numbers. That's all the information you need to borrow (under another person's name) from many financial institutions. As a result, financial institutions would be wise to, at least, demand proof of income (IMO, they always should have) in their online lending process. They would also be prudent to strengthen their online account opening process.
Will isn't this special? Equifax could have fixed the hole 2 months before the hack:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...uts/665100001/
Those with a poor view of corporate America might think that this was a way to get millions of people hooked on their lousy identity theft protection so that they would feel compelled to start paying for it in a year. Take the stock hit now (and hey, some execs didn't even take that), and make loads later because Americans have a notoriously short memory. Besides, you as an individual consumer don't employ/hire/use Equifax. Most people probably don't even know how the 3 reporting agencies work.
fwiw our local radio consumer guru, Clark Howard, has been preaching about freezing your credit for a long time. I've did it years ago and have never had much of an issue unfreezing - whether for a mortgage, refi, car purchase, etc. Whenever you unfreeze there is an option for your credit to automatically refreeze after a period of time (say, 4 hours) so that you don't have to remember to go back and do it again.
My Quick Smells Like French Toast.
Yea, my wife and I (and our college-age daughter) just mailed off (certified mail, return receipt requested) a letter for each of us to the three main credit reporting companies (with proof of ID - copy of driver's license), asking that they freeze our credit. According to Clark Howard - cited above - this is the best strategy for dealing with this or any other breach of personal information. Allegedly, a thief who gets your personal information can not open a credit account (credit card, loan, etc) with your name and SSN. Hopefully, this will work to prevent fraud but the problem is that the potential thief, if they have your data, will have it forever, so you will have to be vigilant for the rest of your life (in theory). I'm in favor, if the hackers are ever caught, of giving them the death penalty.
yes, as a former bank geek, it seems apparent to me that new standards will very soon be required for lenders with all this data floating around...with names, addresses and social security numbers compromised, some other requirement needs to be added to the mix.
I'm waiting for the dust to clear before I act, since I have no intention of getting any new loans or cards...
Unfortunately, they would probably end up serving less than 5 years, if it's their first felony conviction. And, I'd give you even odds they're not even on U.S. soil.
The good news is when they get loans in other people's names, it's hard to get the proceeds (loan disbursals) converted to cash or their bank accounts. This is why they need to find suckers to cash these loan disbursal checks. Lonely, foolish, and/or greedy people are their normal targets.
I'll try to keep this short, since I could write for hours about this issue.
1. Regulators are always reactive and usually years behind problems and concerns. This will get massive attention, so give them 2-6 months to do what should take 2-6 hours.
2. IMO, loans should not be made without current proof of income. Billions of dollars worth of these loans will continue to be made annually, regardless of this event.
3. IMO, the first thing regulators should do is address new accounts. Most of these bogus loans will be made somewhere the individual has never banked.
4. The next 3 year trend will be towards less regulation, not more. The regulators should emphasize current tools like the Bank Secrecy Act.
Wonder how many years the lawsuits will last?
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/14/equi...-database.html
Wonder how many weeks the CEO will last?
Yea, I was only half serious....but I do think we need to be very aggressive about going after the perpetrators of these frauds and giving them the maximum punishment, if caught (and I'm sure most of them are not on US soil that complicates the whole process). I would also guess that given the amount of money that can made from these frauds, that there is almost endless number of crooks around the world who will try to hack into accounts and steal money. I'm not sure that any sort of potential punishment will deter them.
Too many people are overly concerned about financial identity theft. As I stated up-thread, with some diligence financial losses will be very limited. And it may take up a lot of your time and give you headaches, but cash out of pocket will be minimal. Of course, they can also wreck your credit which will lead to migraines.
Which brings me to medical identity theft. A nearly 5-year-old Consumer Reports article linked above pooh-poohed the idea of identity theft protection, and I will agree with the article that many of the services are nearly worthless. But here's Consumer Reports last year on medical identity theft:
https://www.consumerreports.org/medi...dentity-theft/
The Equifax free monitoring will not catch this, and most surely will do nothing to fix it. There's just so many ways that identity theft can screw up your life. There's also your driver's license, etc.
On the plus side, the Equifax hack won't affect your kids. That's a whole 'nother ball of wax.
The CIO too. In truth, it is likely the CIO who was most negligent here as I doubt the CEO knew all that much about the specifics of the software security measures that company takes. The news that the hack was done via an Apache hole that was discovered months ago and that a patch was offered but Equifax did not use it isborderlinecriminal conduct on the part of the Equifax IT folks.
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
I dunno, Jason. He should have asked for a briefing every week and data every day. In his own mind he should remember what he was told about penetration attempts and measures to ward off such threats. What else would you worry about as CEO of Equifax, which is a big data company?
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
frankly, i have a problem with a company that collects somewhat private information from your personal financial dealings, and then uses that information to form some sort of accepted "score" on you...then, selling that score...
"One POSSIBLE future. From your point of view... I don't know tech stuff.".... Kyle Reese