Full Answer
What you should do about the Equifax data breach?
Other measures every individual should consider taking against identity theft and fraud include:
- Monitor your credit card and bank accounts for invalid charges.
- If you opt against a credit freeze, place a fraud alert on your files to notify creditors that they should verify the identity of anyone seeking credit in your name.
- File your taxes as early as possible to thwart tax identity theft.
What should I do after the Equifax data breach?
What to do if your account is compromised
- Least sensitive — change your password. If you’re notified that one of your online accounts has been compromised, change your password immediately.
- Moderately sensitive — notify your bank. If your card payment numbers have been stolen, notify the bank or company that issued the card immediately.
- Most sensitive — notify Equifax and TransUnion. ...
How much will the data breach cost Equifax?
The credit bureau Equifax will pay about $650 million — and perhaps much more — to resolve most claims stemming from a 2017 data breach that exposed sensitive information on more than 147 million consumers and demonstrated how little control Americans have over their personal data.
What you should know about the Equifax data breach?
The credit-checking company, which that holds sensitive data on over 140 million people, suffered one of the worst data breach in history, and then tried to hide the damage. Equifax discovered the data theft on July 29 th but kept the breach secret for over a month, finally disclosing it in an 8-K filing, an SEC document that public companies are required to file when they experience a ‘material event.”
See more
How much did Equifax stock drop after breach?
Equifax Stock Has Plunged 18.4% Since It Revealed Massive Breach.
How much did the data breach cost Equifax?
In total, the breach cost Equifax $1.14 billion in 2019 alone. Overall, the breach cost Equifax more than $1.7 billion since it was first disclosed in 2017. According to Equifax, at the time of the breach, the company had $125 million in cybersecurity insurance coverage.
How much is the Equifax payout?
If you asked for money If you requested compensation of up to $125 or reimbursement for time spent recovering from fraud or ID theft, a check or debit card will be mailed to the address you used when submitting your claim. Be prepared for compensation that is much less than you requested.
Is Equifax stock a good buy?
Equifax has received a consensus rating of Buy. The company's average rating score is 2.60, and is based on 9 buy ratings, 6 hold ratings, and no sell ratings.
Did anyone get money from Equifax?
Court Approves Equifax Breach Settlement: Money for Some, Free Credit Monitoring for All. Equifax will pay up to $425 million in restitution to those directly impacted by the massive data breach of the credit bureau in 2017. A federal court gave final approval to the class-action lawsuit settlement in mid-January.
Why did China hack Equifax?
While Justice Department officials do not believe economic espionage was the primary goal of the Equifax hacking, Mr. Demers said the attack could be seen as a violation of the spirit of that deal. “China sees economic interests and intelligence interests as one and the same,” he said.
How do I check my Equifax breach settlement?
Status of financial reimbursement For more details and to check your claim status, visit EquifaxBreachSettlement.com . If you were affected by the Equifax data breach, you can still claim financial reimbursement for costs you incurred, or time you spent dealing with fraud or identity theft, after January 22, 2022.
Can you get money from a data breach?
If you were impacted by the Equifax data breach, you may seek reimbursement for valid Out-of-Pocket losses or Time Spent (excluding losses of money and time associated with freezing or unfreezing credit reports or purchasing credit monitoring or identity theft protection) incurred during the Extended Claims Period if ...
Can you get paid for a data breach?
You also can file a claim for the time you spent recovering from identity theft or fraud between January 23, 2020, and January 22, 2024. You can be compensated up to $25 per hour up to 20 hours. There are limited funds available so your claim may be reduced.
Is Equifax publicly traded?
With over 10,000 employees worldwide, Equifax has US$3.1 billion in annual revenue and is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol EFX.
What is Equifax phone number?
(888) 378-4329Equifax / Customer service
How much will each person get from Equifax settlement?
Under the settlement terms, Equifax agreed to set up a fund to provide free credit monitoring and identity theft protection to consumers, as well as provide cash payments to people affected by the breach—up to $20,000 per person.
Can I file a lawsuit against Equifax?
You can sue Equifax, but you may need to take certain steps depending on the reason. Suing Equifax requires that Equifax did something wrong like Equifax reporting you as dead, Equifax mixed you up with someone else, Equifax refused victim's rights with identity theft, or failed to investigate a credit error.
What happened to Equifax in 2017?
On September 7, 2017, Equifax publicly announced its data breach, which resulted in its stock price falling. Jun Ying, 44, of Atlanta, Georgia, was sentenced to four months in prison to be followed by one year of supervised release, ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $117,117.61, and fined $55,000. Ying was convicted on these charges on ...
Where is Equifax located?
Attorney Pak, the charges and other information presented in court: Equifax Inc. is a consumer credit reporting agency headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. During the summer of 2017, Equifax was the victim of a data breach, where hackers acquired names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, and addresses of over 145 million Americans. At the time, Jun Ying was the Chief Information Officer of Equifax U.S. Information Solutions. In that role, he was provided sensitive information that led him to conclude that Equifax was the victim of the data breach before it was made public.
Who was the Chief Information Officer of Equifax?
At the time, Jun Ying was the Chief Information Officer of Equifax U.S. Information Solutions. In that role, he was provided sensitive information that led him to conclude that Equifax was the victim of the data breach before it was made public.
When will Equifax pay dividends?
Equifax® (NYSE: EFX) today announced that the Equifax Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.39 per share, payable on Dec. 15, 2021, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on Nov. 24, 2021. Equifax has paid cash dividends for more than 100 consecutive years.
When will Equifax release results for 2021?
Equifax Inc. (NYSE: EFX) will announce its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2021, in a release to be issued on July 21 after the market closes.
Does Equifax have ACA?
Equifax (NYSE: EFX) has expanded its Affordable Care Act (ACA) Management solution to help satisfy state reporting requirements for the states that have recently implemented their own individual mandates. In those states, employers have additional reporting requirements and must file the same information with the state as to the IRS, a potentially manual and time-consuming task for HR and payroll teams. Equifax Workforce Solutions offers employers with employees in those states with individual m
Who bought Appriss Insights?
Equifax® (NYSE: EFX) a global data, analytics and technology company has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Appriss Insights, a trusted and comprehensive source of risk and criminal justice intelligence, for $1.825 billion.
Is Equifax a credit bureau?
Analyst Report: Equifax Inc. Along with Experian and TransUnion, Equifax is one of the leading credit bureaus in the United States. Equifax’s credit reports provide credit histories on millions of consumers, and the firm's services are critical to lenders’ credit decisions. In addition, about a third of the firm’s revenue comes from workforce solutions, which provides income verification and employer human resources services. Equifax generates over 20% of its revenue from outside the United States.
How did the Equifax breach happen?
The Equifax breach investigation highlighted a number of security lapses that allowed attackers to enter supposedly secure systems and exfiltrate terabytes of data.
How did Equifax handle the breach?
Among their stumbles was setting up a separate dedicated domain, equifaxsecurity2017.com, to host the site with information and resources for those potentially affected . These sorts of lookalike domains are often used by phishing scams, so asking customers to trust this one was a monumental failure in infosec procedure. Worse, on multiple occasions official Equifax social media accounts erroneously directed people to securityequifax2017.com instead; fortunately, the person who had snapped up that URL used it for good, directing the 200,000 (!) visitors it received to the correct site.
What data was compromised and how many people were affected?
It potentially affected 143 million people — more than 40 percent of the population of the United States — whose names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and drivers' licenses numbers were exposed. A small subset of the records — on the order of about 200,000 — also included credit card numbers; this group probably consisted of people who had paid Equifax directly in order to order to see their own credit report.
Who was responsible for the Equifax data breach?
As soon as the Equifax breach was announced, infosec experts began keeping tabs on dark web sites, waiting for huge dumps of data that might be connected to it. They waited, and waited, but the data never appeared. This gave rise to what's become a widely accepted theory: that Equifax was breached by Chinese state-sponsored hackers whose purpose was espionage, not theft.
How does the Equifax settlement work?
The settlement mandates that Equifax compensate anyone affected by the breach with credit monitoring services; Equifax wants you to sign up for their own service, of course, and while they will also give you a $125 check to go buy those services from somewhere else, you have to show that you do have alternate coverage to get the money (though you could sign up for a free service).
What are the lessons learned from the Equifax breach?
If we wanted to make a case study of the Equifax breach, what lessons would we pull from it? These seem to be the big ones:
Why did Equifax pull data out of the network?
The attackers pulled data out of the network in encrypted form undetected for months because Equifax had crucially failed to renew an encryption certificate on one of their internal security tools.
How much did Equifax pay for data breach?
Equifax to Pay at Least $650 Million in Largest-Ever Data Breach Settlement. The Equifax offices in Atlanta. One of America’s three largest credit bureaus, the company has files on hundreds of millions of people worldwide that contain extensive details about their financial accounts and transactions.
Who was behind the Equifax hack?
Law enforcement officials have never publicly identified who was behind the hack. Although the thieves did not steal Equifax’s crown jewels, its credit files, they used a flaw that was left unfixed to gain access to dozens of databases. According to a government report, the attackers siphoned off information for about 76 days until Equifax discovered the intrusion in late July 2017. The company waited more than a month to disclose the breach.
How does Equifax make money?
Equifax makes money by selling its vast trove of information to auto loan, mortgage and credit card issuers.
How much did Equifax pay in 2019?
By Stacy Cowley. July 22, 2019. The credit bureau Equifax will pay about $650 million — and perhaps much more — to resolve most claims stemming from a 2017 data breach that exposed sensitive information on more than 147 million consumers and demonstrated how little control Americans have over their personal data.
How long will Equifax monitor credit?
Equifax agreed to provide up to 10 years of free credit monitoring services to all victims of the breach in the United States, an offer that could prove costly. Equifax is paying one of its competitors, Experian, to provide that service for the first four years, but the settlement assumes only about seven million people will sign up.
What was the Equifax website?
Equifax created an information website that barely functioned. It struggled to keep up with the deluge of phone calls and messages from worried consumers. At one point, it even accidentally pointed those seeking information on the breach toward a fake website.
How much harm did the breach do to consumers?
It has been difficult to determine how much harm the breach did to consumers, because cybersecurity experts have not seen any sign of victims’ stolen names, Social Security numbers and addresses surfacing in the kinds of online marketplaces where such stolen information is often trafficked.
