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In a Highly Unusual Move, FTC Confirms It Is Investigating Equifax (reuters.com)
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Thursday confirmed it is investigating Equifax's handling of a data breach affecting 143m Americans. "The FTC typically does not comment on ongoing investigations. However, in light of the intense public interest and the potential impact of this matter, I can confirm that FTC staff is investigating the Equifax data breach," said Peter Kaplan, the commission's acting director of public affairs. Washington Post reporter tweeted: "To put a finer point on it, this is really, really unusual -- the FTC hardly ever says anything about ongoing probes."
Slap on the wrist, formal apology issued, dinner and drinks at the White House with the executives of the company so that they can swear fealty, and back to #MAGA. Next problem? This is easy.
Since politicians' identities were compromised along with the unwashed masses, OF COURSE they are going to investigate and make it known.
What makes you think that politicians' identities are exempt from this breach?
It would be surprising is there WASN'T an investigation given Equifax has credit and personal info on a huge number of the US population and controls credit access of virtually the entire country.
I'm not sure that the FTC actually cares about the data that was leaked. On the other hand those allegations of insider trading due to the breach are certainly to interest to them.
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I support the death penalty. So much, in fact, that I want to see Equifax executed - in this case, by having its corporate charter revoked. They're not "too big to fail". They're not providing a valuable product to our economy. They're not America's Last Great Hope at manufacturing or anything like that. They're a rent-seeking parasite on the economy who obviously can never again be trusty with the weaponizable data they collect on everyone who lives here. Cut off its head - sacrifice it on the altar of accountability and justice - and call it done.
And as we'd lock up a street-level criminal until their trial, Equifax should be imprisoned by having its bank accounts and stock trades frozen immediately. Sure, that means it can't pay its CEO. Yes, it means its employees will break up with it in favor of more upstanding members of society. Yeah, it means it won't be able to pay rent and will probably get evicted. If all that's good enough for Joe Accused Weed Dealer, it's good enough for Equifax Accused Stalker.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Equifax needs to face SEVERE punishment for negligence. Their incompetence impacts everything from personal finance, to national security. Just think what those nasty Russian's will do with the knowledge of exactly which pesky counter intelligence officer is having credit issues.
based on the number of records leaked, there's a good 40% chance per top govt exec that their info WAS leaked
I would add, based on that percentage, not only is there a good chance that top government executives had their information leaked, but its most likely that information was also leaked about their spouses, adult children, parents, siblings, friends, etc. So I think many would take this personally. If you want to be cynical about it, this leak is going to create a lot of headaches for powerful entities like multinational banks, telecoms, and others who relied on Equifax to vet loans and identities and are going to have to deal with large spikes in fraud for years because of the breach. This kind of breach also helps to further undermine confidence in the banking system they are a part of. They may want this to go forward so they can take a chunk out of Equifax's hide as well. Oh, and their and their families, friends, etc. personal data has also been leaked, so they will probably have some personal motivations as well.
The prudent have already placed a security freeze on their credit with all three credit bureaus to prevent new accounts from being opened up.
( You should do this anyway since there is no need to run credit checks very often. Unfreeze when you need to )
Don't even bother trying to do it online unless you enjoy frustration. Just call them.
Equifax — 1-800-349-9960
Experian — 1-888-397-3742
TransUnion — 1-888-909-8872
Banks / lenders will simply reissue new cards and / or change account numbers to be on the safe side. $$$ for them, but I suspect they're
going to recoup those costs and then some in the lawsuit they're gonna hit Equifax with.
Maybe we should add a user modifiable pin to the SSN for all transactions that require it.
( Or, quit using the GD thing since for day to day ID as it was never supposed to be used for such purposes )
You should probably pull your free credit report from all three agencies asap if you haven't done so already so you have a baseline to work with
going forward.