Slashdot Mirror
Equifax Tells Investors They Could Be Breached Again - And That They're Still Profitable (nypost.com)
"Equifax executives will forgo their 2017 bonuses," reports CNBC. But according to the New York Post, the company "hasn't lost any significant business customers... Equifax largely does business with banks and other financial institutions -- not with the people they collect information on."
Even though it's facing more than 240 class-action lawsuits, Equifax's revenue actually increased 3.8% from July to September, to a whopping $834.8 million, while their net income for that period was $96.3 million -- which is still more than the $87.5 million that the breach cost them, according to a new article shared by chicksdaddy: The disclosure, made as part of the company's quarterly filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, is the first public disclosure of the direct costs of the incident, which saw the company's stock price plunge by more than 30% and wiped out billions of dollars in value to shareholders. Around $55.5m of the $87.5m in breach-related costs stems from product costs â" mostly credit monitoring services that it is offering to affected individuals. Professional fees added up to another $17.1m for Equifax and consumer support costs totaled $14.9m, the company said. Equifax also said it has spent $27.3 million of pretax expenses stemming from the cost of investigating and remediating the hack to Equifax's internal network as well as legal and other professional expenses.
But the costs are likely to continue. Equifax is estimating costs of $56 million to $110 million in "contingent liability" in the form of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection to all U.S. consumers as a good will gesture. The costs provided by Equifax are an estimate of the expenses necessary to provide this service to those who have signed up or will sign up by the January 31, 2018 deadline. So far, however, the company has only incurred $4.7 million through the end of September. So, while the upper bound of those contingent liability costs is high, there's good reason to believe that they will never be reached.
The Post reports that some business customers "have delayed new contracts until Equifax proves that they've done enough to shore up their cybersecurity."
But in their regulatory filing Thursday, Equifax admitted that "We cannot assure that all potential causes of the incident have been identified and remediated and will not occur again."
Even though it's facing more than 240 class-action lawsuits, Equifax's revenue actually increased 3.8% from July to September, to a whopping $834.8 million, while their net income for that period was $96.3 million -- which is still more than the $87.5 million that the breach cost them, according to a new article shared by chicksdaddy: The disclosure, made as part of the company's quarterly filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, is the first public disclosure of the direct costs of the incident, which saw the company's stock price plunge by more than 30% and wiped out billions of dollars in value to shareholders. Around $55.5m of the $87.5m in breach-related costs stems from product costs â" mostly credit monitoring services that it is offering to affected individuals. Professional fees added up to another $17.1m for Equifax and consumer support costs totaled $14.9m, the company said. Equifax also said it has spent $27.3 million of pretax expenses stemming from the cost of investigating and remediating the hack to Equifax's internal network as well as legal and other professional expenses.
But the costs are likely to continue. Equifax is estimating costs of $56 million to $110 million in "contingent liability" in the form of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection to all U.S. consumers as a good will gesture. The costs provided by Equifax are an estimate of the expenses necessary to provide this service to those who have signed up or will sign up by the January 31, 2018 deadline. So far, however, the company has only incurred $4.7 million through the end of September. So, while the upper bound of those contingent liability costs is high, there's good reason to believe that they will never be reached.
The Post reports that some business customers "have delayed new contracts until Equifax proves that they've done enough to shore up their cybersecurity."
But in their regulatory filing Thursday, Equifax admitted that "We cannot assure that all potential causes of the incident have been identified and remediated and will not occur again."
The fact it still exists shows how corrupt things are.
"Equifax admitted that profit declined 28% from a year ago. However, after wiping away the $87.5 million in costs of the data breach for its adjusted earnings metric, Equifax was able to claim a 6% gain in profit and beat average analyst estimates. Equifax’s adjusted earnings are nothing new for it or thousands of other companies. MarketWatch has shown repeatedly how companies use adjusted earnings to make their results appear better than they actually are... the company stripped the charges from a non-GAAP earnings figure that it provided, which allows Equifax to claim that profits are growing even as it takes a hit from the data breach. https://www.marketwatch.com/st...
Well now that they have revealed those numbers, the class action lawsuit lawyers have a concrete goal for the settlement sums, lmao.
At this point, why would anyone do business with Equifax? After all, the information they have about you as a business partner is not secure and the information they provide to you may be corrupted.
They won't have to factor in the costs of lawyers until later.
People should ignore the class action suits, and file millions of personal suits, assuming there are sufficient ambulance chasers available to work knowing they'll only be paid if they win.
If these corporations were actually people, they would be feed to the dogs. They prey on people coming and going. They sell and trade information to manipulate people, while gaming the system in their favor. There are plenty of ways to do business without completely disregarding any semblance of privacy.
--
"Use the force Luke" - O. W. Kenobi
You can play the feds like a violin.
Most companies are evaluating APIs of others and laying groundwork to switch. Be ready Equifax. Lol Thats how we did it and you never saw it coming then.
Corporations are going to treat people like shit until a few CEOs and board members are punished, and not just financially. We've got Guantanamo Bay and it hasn't been at all useful to fight terrorists, so why not start putting these monsters there?
There is a saying, that "The only way to stop a bad guy with a corporation is a good guy with a gun." I know it sounds a little bit harsh, but it's just not going to stop until something drastic happens.
I'll tell you the last thing these corporate jackoffs need is a fat tax cut.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Doesn't really matter to me what but my brother got a letter the other week from Equifax telling him that his information has been stolen and that he can protect it in the future for just £30.00.
I... I can't even...
Translation: We will not have to pay all costs, allowing our incompetence and laziness to continue.
Someone please shoot those wankers already, they're just torturing themselves anymore.
And even more important, us.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If enough people freeze their credit with Equifax - but not with Experian and Transunion, Equifax will lose customers. I just got a new credit card and my credit is frozen with them. Just had to talk with the card people over the phone.
"But in their regulatory filing Thursday, Equifax admitted that "We cannot assure that all potential causes of the incident have been identified and remediated and will not occur again."
WE SUCK!
How convenient the executives sold their shares before it plunged. So why are they still not in jail?
sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
Has convinced human resources departments everywhere that there is a correlation between credit scores and reliability - correlation does not imply causation. Furthermore, they've also managed to sell their product to consumers wishing to know what their credit score is. The rake in the money by the millions and the true victims are the plebes of society. Equifax sells their service to banks under the blanket of "helping the bank minimize risks." It is just another case of the 99% butt-raping the 1%.
What Equifax is trying to do is convince people to continue to invest in a dead horse.
This is why there needs to be a "Moron" tag.
Equifax, Microsoft, J.P.Morgan Chase - they are among a privileged enclave. Their status does not depend on how they serve the public. Their value derives solely from the service they provide to the federal government.
They are not going away, so learn to live with it.
Perhaps you know a few others in this select group?
let me guess $27.1 million on legal fees, $0.1 on investigation and $0.1 on security improvements?
After the breach I enrolled in their free monitoring. Also got my Equifax credit score; a nice number, but I already knew I had a good score.
Then I applied for a loan. As a function of that the bank told me again my Equifax credit score; another nice number, but not the same as what Equifax had just shown me a week or two before. (Please note: yes, the bank specifically said its my Equifax credit score. Not some average of the big three or four credit scores. It's (just) my Equifax credit score.)
But – and this is where it gets interesting – I also got my Equifax Bankruptcy Score.
WTF, another mystery number that nobody knows what it means and there's no way to check it. And no way to correct it if it's 'wrong'. I found a couple semi-contradictory explanations on the web. Higher numbers apparently mean Equifax thinks you're a risk for declaring bankruptcy.
They gave me a medium high number, but I don't know why. My mortgage is nearly paid off. I have no other debt to speak of outside of small balances on a couple credit cards that I pay off every month, and have a long track record of paying off every month. I have a healthy balance in my savings account. I've never declared bankruptcy before. Why isn't my bankruptcy score near zero then, is what I want to know.
And once we pry open that kimono they'll just invent another secret number about you.
The Libretards believe information wants to be free.
Because it's true, in the same way nature abhors a vacuum: there is a space which (certain) information occupies and a space where it does not occupy. It is easier for the information to go to the non-occupied space than it is to clear a space of information.
As analogy think of fluids and diffusion: once you pee in the pool good luck trying to get it out. Similarly, once information/data/a file is on the Internet, good luck trying to take it down.
Didn't you hear, the company hired the Three Wise Monkeys (other wise known as their own corporate layers) to do an investigation. They went "La, la, la, I can't see or hear you" and exonerated the executives of any wrongdoing.
Do you really expect the SEC under Trump to actually do anything?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Forget the free credit monitoring, that will just tell you that a problem is already underway. Freeze your credit, which keeps anyone from opening a new line of credit, or anyone else from examining your credit. You can briefly unfreeze if necessary to, for example, get a loan or a new card. In some cases freezing and unfreezing can cost you, but that's a lot less hassle than trying to undo a situation that's already begun. I'm optimistic that Congress at some point is going to make the credit agencies freeze and unfreeze for free, the way they made them provide an annual credit report for free.
Maybe "we the consumed" should collectively and continually vulnerability scan all of Equifax's online resources to independently ensure our own PII is being protected. If a vulnerability is found, then we can all contact Equifax and let them know. United, we stand together. Divided, we stand alone.
...the risk/damage.
Encrypt each user's information with an individual AES256 key. Then perimeter penetration, while still bad, is limited in scope, and while keys like that can be broken, it's expensive at a per-user basis (rather than free for millions of users.)
This requires a key management system, but they exist today. How do you avoid all the keys being stolen? That's actually vastly simpler and easier than securing the rest of the network. How to keep the thieves from cracking the interfaces/APIs to the KMS? That's actually simpler and easier than other approaches as well - and is easily monitored and requests can carry requisite AND encrypted meta-data to use against a policy engine on the front of that KMS.
Long story short - all enterprises are going to be doing something like this in 5-10 years (banks are doing it already.)
Loading...
If everyone single person put a security freeze on their Equifax account, would it hurt the company?
I was completed dumbfounded when just a week ago I official got a letter from Equifax saying my information had been breeched. Just absolutely incredible the incompetence that comes from these companies.
"Equifax executives will forgo their 2017 bonuses," reports CNBC. But according to the New York Post, the company "hasn't lost any significant business customers... Equifax largely does business with banks and other financial institutions -- not with the people they collect information on."
"The dope about the dopes is our product, the banks that buy it are our customers. These idiots might be pissed off at at us, but who cares, we don't need their love, just their info." All absolute truths.
There is some minor hiccups due to law suits. The first line of defense it has is binding arbitration. Since we the public are not really the customers, we have not really agreed to any binding arbitration clause. It is possible the fine pint in our credit application might have some line about binding arbitration. But, that is with the bank, second that is for any dispute about the accuracy and veracity of the credit reports. Not about lack of security in Equifax harming us.
But even if it gets bigger, it would be well nigh impossible to prove Equifax breach is why our identities are stolen.
So in the end, the sad fact is, nothing is going to happen to equifax.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Wait until they're forced to start cutting dividends, or increasing them knowing they have to take as much cash out as possible before the house of cards falls.