Equifax: Hackers Also Compromised Driver's Licenses, Passports

[Guest]

Equifax told the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the data breach it revealed in 2017 compromised more data than previously thought.

Equifax: Hackers Also Compromised Driver's Licenses, Passports : Read more

 

[Giroro]

Why and how would Equifax have copies of people's ID cards? Was this just some HR database of Equifax employees?

 

[stdragon]

Why and how would Equifax have copies of people's ID cards? Was this just some HR database of Equifax employees?

Equifax is one of the BIG THREE bureaus: The other two being Experian and TransUnion. Basically, anytime you open a line of credit (new credit card, car loan, mortgage, default on payment..etc), your info goes and gets pulled from there.

Put it another way. If you needed info to conduct ID theft, you couldn't have picked a better place to hack. It's literally a trove of personal information to obtain!!!

As for the hack itself - it was in part because of a then zero-day exploit in Apache Struts 2.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/09/apache_under_attack_patch_for_zero_day_available/

 

[derekullo]

They also stole;
A copy of all your exams from grades 1-12 (Calculating risk starts young)
A copy of your social security card
A copy of your medicaid card
A copy of your marriage license (If you are not married they still have a copy, good luck disputing it without a lawyer)
The rights to your first born child (retroactive of course)
The best parking spot at work
The last parking spot at work
Your personal diary
Your real personal diary
The last 2 pieces of fish at Piccadilly

 

[kenjitamura]

Equifax must be mighty happy to live in the country with some of the most lax punishments for white collar crimes in the world.

And in this political climate the people are much more likely to care about the perceived damage immigrants pose over something minor like a string of identity thefts that will leave them in desperate need of some of the social safety net that is now top priority for spending cuts.

 

[Co BIY]

"Why and how would Equifax have copies of people's ID cards? Was this just some HR database of Equifax employees?"

My guess is individuals who have had a previous identity theft problem and used copies of government issued ID to prove who was who. (Explains the small number compared to total records.)

 

[hixbot]

It's absolutely criminal that Equifax kept so much information un-encrypted. The hackers just had to break into the database, and all the data was plain text. I don't understand why the media freaks out about a facebook data breach, your likes and dislikes and social media patterns, congress drags Zuckerberg to testify, this is all minor compared to the Equifax hack. Equifax needs to answer for there crimes. Where is the mainstream media's outrage? Where is congress on this one? This is big stuff! Credit information, all your critical ID data. We're talking about potential ID theft on a massive scale. Likely state sponsored hackers in China, NK, Russia are selling your ID info to thieves. This needs to be a bigger deal!

 

[stdragon]

Criminal? Nah, they're "too big to fail". That precident has been set with the bailout of the banks durring the housing crisis.