Personal data of 140 million people exposed through Equifax hack

Equifax, one of the three big consumer-credit reporting companies in the US, has confirmed a data breach that has possibly leaked personal data of 143 million people, including names, addresses, social security numbers, credit card numbers, date of birth, home addresses, and in some cases driver’s license numbers, as well as ‘certain dispute documents with personal identifying information’. The company added that the breach also affected ‘limited personal information’ of certain U.K. and Canadian residents. A recent report by Bloomberg, claims that Equifax has discovered the breach in March, almost half a year before it reported it, possibly because it believed to had had the incident under control. According to ArsTechnica, the attackers likely spent months escalating their intrusion into Equifax’s network. Security company Mandiant, which was hired by Equifax to investigate the breach, has reported dozens of IP addresses used by the attackers to penetrate the system, but has not identified the identity of the attackers. Equifax has set up a website for their consumers to obtain information on whether their personal information has been impacted by the breach.