On September 7th, 2017, Equifax announced that up to 145.5 million customers' personal information had been stolen from their databases. |
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Equifax is an American credit reporting agency. They collect credit information on over 800 million people around the world. When their databases were hacked by an anonymous group in 2017, over 100 million customers' information was leaked, sometimes including credit and debit information. 11,670 Canadian and 15.2 million UK customers were also affected. This hack lead to the illegal use of others' credit all over the country. The social implications of this hack may be devastating for future security breaches. As an apology, Equifax offered free 'credit monitoring' or an average cash reinbursment of about $125. This set a precedent that a company can get away with a mistake as large as this without being fined proportionately.  If you want to check if your data was breached, you can look here, but it will require entering your last name and the last 6 digits of your social security number. I cannot personally check if my data was breached due to a lack of access to my social security number, however, I do know that my parents were affected. This means that I was indirectly affected, as information tied to my family was leaked. I do not have any personal recourse with Equifax, but I hope that the many lawsuits that were placed against Equifax can make sure that this incident does not repeat. |