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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."
"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...
The Republicans are big believers in "business", they won't rein in companies like this. The Libretards believe information wants to be free. The Democrats will write new legislation each year for the next 10 years and still not solve the problem.
I wanted to go on record as a libertarian, offering my opinion on this issue
I believe that the current concept of "identity theft" needs to change. The banks should be liable for loans issued to the wrong person. The victim should not be responsible for the mistake of a bank. Given this shift in responsibility I believe that banks and borrowers would then have an incentive to work out a better system to establish credit worthiness, perhaps references voluntarily given. I imagine the idea of extending credit based on a few mouse clicks would go away, and I'm fine with that.