Equifax Breach Included 10 Million US Driving Licenses (engadget.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: 10.9 million U.S. driver's licenses were stolen in the massive breach that Equifax suffered in mid-May, according to a new report by The Wall Street Journal. In addition, WSJ has revealed that the attackers got a hold of 15.2 million UK customers' records, though only 693,665 among them had enough info in the system for the breach to be a real threat to their privacy. Affected customers provided most of the driver's licenses on file to verify their identities when they disputed their credit-report information through an Equifax web page. That page was one of the entry points the attackers used to gain entry into the credit reporting agency's system.

Comments

Customers?

[Zocalo]

You know, it's really starting to bug me that the media, including those that really ought to know better, keeps referring to the victims of the Equifax hack as their "customers". With the exception of those who actually signed up to Equifax's credit checking service of their own volition they, or more accurately the data Equifax has about them, are either victims or the *product*. Equifax's actual customers are the banks, employers, stores, and other companies that buy the data Equifax holds on the victims of the hack, most of whom have no direct business relationship with Equifax beyond an agreement with a third party to have their credit checked that probably didn't even make it clear that it would be Equifax doing the checks.