Slashdot Mirror
Equifax Says Almost 400,000 Britons Hit In Data Breach (bbc.co.uk)
MalachiK shares a report from the BBC: Data about British people "may potentially have been accessed" during the data breach at the U.S. credit rating firm Equifax. The UK arm of the organization said files containing information on "fewer than 400,000" UK consumers was accessed in the breach. In a statement, the UK office of Equifax said an internal investigation had shown that data on UK consumers was accessed during the hack. It said data on Britons was being held in the U.S. due to a "process failure" which meant that a limited amount of information was stored in North America between 2011 and 2016. The information held included names, dates of birth, email addresses and telephone numbers. No addresses, passwords or financial data was involved.
The entire consumer credit reporting industry has been "breached". It's only a matter of time before the other two players make their announcements.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
When it's less than it really mean 399,999 where as if it was nearly it would be 351,000.
By admitting to this, charges can be brought by UK under EU regulations for storing those details. Never mind the class action lawsuit wanting billions in reparation, now those with the power to levy their own fines and decide how large they can be can tear Equifax a new one so wide it can be used as an alternative to the Channel Tunnel.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
This company needs the corporate death penalty. Shut it down, high level management in charge of security gets prison time.
Unless there are meaningful penalties, companies are not going to stop aggregating our information and then failing to secure it. It's too easy to say, "cost of security is higher than OUR cost in a breach, so we'll ignore security".
There have to be asses on the line. No excuses.