Slashdot Mirror
Before It Was Hacked, Equifax Had a Different Fear: Chinese Spying (wsj.com)
Two years before Equifax stunned the world with the announcement it had been hacked, the credit-reporting company believed it was the victim of another theft, only this time at the hands of Chinese spies, WSJ reported Wednesday. From the report: In the previously undisclosed incident, security officials feared that former employees had removed thousands of pages of proprietary information before leaving and heading to jobs in China. Materials included code for planned new products, human-resources files and manuals. Equifax went to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency. Investigators from the company and the FBI came to view events at Equifax as potentially a huge theft of data -- not of consumers' personal data, as happened with the subsequent 2017 hacking of Equifax's files, but of confidential business information. Equifax security officials briefed the then-chief executive, Richard Smith, at a fall 2015 meeting, spreading high stacks of paper across the length of the boardroom table. The voluminous printouts represented what they feared was stolen. Adding to suspicions, the Chinese government had recently asked eight companies to help it build a national credit-reporting system. At one point, Equifax grew so worried it began building a way to monitor the computer activity of all of its ethnic-Chinese employees, according to people familiar with the investigation. The resource-heavy project, which raised legal concerns internally, was short-lived.
... Samuel Slater of the 1700's
Investigating that shouldn't be newsworthy at Equifax, it's a target for both. Doing it incompetently is just par for their course.
"Equifax security officials briefed the then-chief executive, Richard Smith, at a fall 2015 meeting" - wait, what? Equifax has security officials?
The background file for my national security clearance got stolen by the Chinese a few years ago That contained a lot more information than the credit reports that Uncle Sam requested from all three bureaus.
Coincidence?
The CIA used Equifax to train the Chinese wrong on purpose! Now we will be able to breach their data whenever necessary!
Chinese espionage doesn't matter. The Chinese appear to limit themselves to compromising Democrats (Feinstein) or influencing elections on behalf of Democrats (Clinton fund raising etc.) No one in the establishment and its media care about any of this; the targets and beneficiaries are all "good" people immune to questions. Every time another Chinese spy turns up with the inevitable ties to (D)s it gets a day or so in the news cycle and then it quietly disappears.
I guess Russia could take a page from all this; back the correct side and forego all the drama.
Oh noez! De haxx0rz did done de haxx1n!!1!
I can remember when this was a technology site, instead of a conduit for neocon waffle.
Keep talking moron, we have a room for that rent free.
China, NK, Iran ARE still hacking US companies, so we all need to be ready. If not today, tomorrow. Expect to be hacked.
China got my data through the USGovt leaks for clearance information.
Why should they give a flying F about security, if all they do is pay a stupid fine? Gov response has been a joke. Law enforcement: JOKE. Blatant insider trades prior to announcement, and STILL no prison. Consumers are being a$$ raped in every direction as there is no rule of law left in merica.
Sounds like China stole the technology for their own "social" credit rating, where a bad twitter can bar you from employment and your children from getting into a school.
Blood is thicker than politics.
Your ethnic origin is part of your personal identity, at least for 95% of humanity.
The USA has fought two proxy wars against Chinese and killed over a million of them.
If you were Chinese, whose side would you take -- your own, or the global shopping mall the USA?
Alternative Right.
Its not hacking if the Chinese were employed by Equifax. Which they probably were. As far as I'm concerned, if your company has any Chinese nationals or immigrants, you should make sure none of them are in positions were they have access to all of your data and programs...or they'll download all of it and drop it off and the nearest Chinese embassy.
You have been warned.
They're already the undisputed masters of operating a totalitarian surveillance and control system, these days.
They were horrified that the Chinese would steal the information because they wanted to sell the information for top dollar.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
who doesn't worship an american flag. Or those that buy american flag toilet paper.
Right after We The People heard about the equifax breach there was news about many execs and C-levels exercising stock options.
The excuse given was that these stock transactions were setup before the breach, so it was ok.
This possible loss of data to China was probably what started the stock activity.
He is not an African American. He just has really social status. His lack of hygiene is is really high though.