Equifax data breach, 143 million people affected

[roethlisburger]

Lifelock may not provide the protection that it claims:
http://www.businessinsider.com/lifelock-symantec-ceo-identity-theft-ftc-charges-2016-11

[Iglooo]

From the above link,

This all means that the credit reporting firms have zero incentive to protect your personal information to the last mile. And the early evidence of what caused the Equifax breach points to an alarming indifference at that firm to the consequences of a breach. The evidence is that Equifax had a timely warning that some of the software it was using had a gaping security hole and had been provided with a patch—but didn’t install it.

Is this when you say, oh brother!?

[BunsenBurner]

Of course they don’t have any incentive. We are just specks of the massive data that they gather, regardless of whether we want it or not.

[NJres]

They actually have incentives to not securely guard your data. If people are worried about the security of their data and their accounts they are more likely to pay for extra services to protect their accounts. This sounds like a conspiracy theory, but when Equifax offers to do a darkweb search for my email address, and the results come back (of course, compromised!) and include an offer to also search the darkweb for my ss#, phone numbers, bank accounts, drivers license, debit and credit cards, … and they offer a 30 day free trial and then, just $9.99/month, it is pretty clear to me where their incentives lie.

[OHMomof2]

^ that’s why all that needs to be free, immediately. Its going to take political pressure to make that happen, I’m sure.

[coralbrook]

I have a question about cleaning up errors on credit reports.

Many years ago someone used my identity to get telephone service at an address in a town I’ve never heard of. Of course I don’t know anything until my bank pulls my credit report for a refinance. This took hours of my time and months to clear up. Telephone Co’s answer “Sorry, this is you. It has your SSN on the account”

Are these services going to clean everything up?? I still cannot get the erroneous “prior” address off my credit report even though the unpaid account finally came off the report. I don’t think these services will do anything to clean up an issue. They will find the issue and probably send a couple of blank forms and “steps to take”. They are not going to spend the hundreds of hours compiling documentation, phone calls to everybody, runaround, mailing everything. Constantly checking results, etc. no way, because they all require signature

[VeryHappy]

I just froze DH’s and my credit last night, with all three agencies. We have no expectation of ever taking out a new mortgage, car loan, or even credit card again, so I don’t think it’s a big hassle for us. I wrote down all the PINs, etc., and will be putting them in the safe deposit box today.

[doschicos]

Should have happened a week or two ago:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/26/553693826/equifax-chief-steps-down-after-massive-data-breach?

[OHMomof2]

He “retired” right? SMH.

[BunsenBurner]

SMH. As my grandpa used to say, crap always stay afloat. Or something like that. The guy should have been marthastewarted.

[romanigypsyeyes]

I hope his retirement is spent behind bars.

[anomander]

Finally. Although who wants to bet the CEO has a golden parachute and will get a separation bonus of millions of dollars?

[partyof5]

Yes @anomander I would bet my last dollar he has a fat balance in nonqualified plan just waiting for payout.

[MACmiracle]

My Eqifax confirmation email finally came through. I started the first part of the process but I haven’t been able to complete because each page is loading sooo slowly and then I get a message that a secure connection can’t be established. I think their system is overloaded with users and calling is just as bad. I will try to log in again when I have a chunk of time in the middle of the night or something.

[notrichenough]

I would bet my last dollar he has a fat balance in nonqualified plan just waiting for payout.

Funny you should mention that.

After all, the main benefit of Smith retiring from Equifax, as opposed to being fired for cause—besides preserving his dignity—is that he’ll get to continue earning his unvested stock compensation, including options and performance-based awards, as though he were still working at the company, according to Equifax policy. That perk, however, could still be revoked.
…
And even if Smith is ultimately fired for cause, he’ll still get to keep much of the paycheck he is owed anyway. For starters, Smith, who has been the CEO of Equifax since 2005, has accumulated about $18.5 million in retirement benefits that he’ll receive no matter what. Then there’s the Equifax stock he owns that was worth about $23.6 million as of Tuesday’s market close, which Smith is now free to sell as he pleases now that he’s no longer CEO. And that’s on top of the **stock he already dumped earlier this year for proceeds of nearly $19 million/b. Add to that his prorated salary of more than $1 million, and the total still comes to almost $62 million.

http://fortune.com/2017/09/26/equifax-ceo-richard-smith-net-worth/

Nice work if you can get it.

[notrichenough]

Apparently he’s been selling stock for a while:

Smith’s stock sales since the start of 2016 brought in $84.3 million all told, leaving him with a roughly $70 million profit.

His reported income since he joined the company in late 2005 only comes to about $122 million, according to company filings

“Only”.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/14/news/companies/equifax-ceo-pay/index.html

[partyof5]

Seriously too many CEOs are overcompensated big time!

[dadoftwingirls]

i figure once the lawsuit is over, I’ll get a $40 coupon and the lawyers will get millions.

[Iglooo]

An anonymous reader quotes Bloomberg’s report on the contractor Equifax first hired to investigate their breach:
Equifax and Mandiant got into a dispute just as the hackers were gaining a foothold in the company’s network… Mandiant warned Equifax that its unpatched systems and misconfigured security policies could indicate major problems, a person familiar with the perspectives of both sides said. For its part, Equifax believed Mandiant had sent an undertrained team without the expertise it expected from a marquee security company…

That rift, which appears to have squelched a broader look at weaknesses in the company’s security posture, looks to have given the intruders room to operate freely within the company’s network for months. According to an internal analysis of the attack, the hackers had time to customize their tools to more efficiently exploit Equifax’s software, and to query and analyze dozens of databases to decide which held the most valuable data. The trove they collected was so large it had to be broken up into smaller pieces to try to avoid tripping alarms as data slipped from the company’s grasp through the summer… By the time they were done, the attackers had accessed dozens of sensitive databases and created more than 30 separate entry points into Equifax’s computer systems.

“They may not have immediately grasped the value of their discovery, but, as the attack escalated over the following months, that first group – known as an entry crew – handed off to a more sophisticated team of hackers,” reports Bloomberg, suggesting that the attack may have been sponsored by a nation-state.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/09/30/207200/squabble-with-contractor-delayed-equifaxs-response-to-data-breach?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29

[OHMomof2]

Finally completed the freeze process for D and I - all 5 companies. Who took the longest? Equifax.