Equifax is hacked, 143 million US customers data exposed

Criminals exploited a US website application vulnerability to gain access to certain files that included names, Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers. Moreover, credit card numbers of around 209,000 US consumers and certain dispute documents with personal identifying information of around 182,000 US consumers were accessed. Information of some UK and Canadian residents was also gained in the hack, Equifax said for Reuters.

Cybersecurity experts said the breach was very serious as it affects the whole credit reporting system in the United States because everyone uses the same data and nobody can recover it.

The company discovered the breach on July 29. Equifax said in its statement that it was working with law enforcement agencies and has hired a cyber-security companies to investigate the breach.

Equifax handles data on more than 820 million consumers and more than 91 million businesses worldwide and manages a database with employee information from more than 7,100 employers, according to its website. The company’s shares fell nearly 19% in after-market trading as investors reacted to possible consequences of the exposure of sensitive data of nearly half of the US population. Nevertheless, according to Reuters, the company said in a statement that the executives were not aware that an intrusion had occurred when they sold their shares.

Equifax said consumers could check if their information had been impacted at www.equifaxsecurity2017.com.