The Equifax identity theft breach from the eyes of a former data broker-Terse comments

Equifax isn't saying a lot because they want to lay low and avoid any publicity; kinda like the Mafia did when they were flying high. Well, credit bureaus are flying high making more money than God and hiding everything just like the mobs used to do. I am talking about what they do with your personal data, but, as a public corp. they can't hide their financials. Equifax CEO Richard Smith brags about 2016 revenue being $3.1 billion, 18% more than 2015, and on the same course in 2017. Of course, he didn't know about the data breach then, but it is obvious none of their earnings--adjusted EBITDA margins of 35.8 percent--were spent on securing the private consumer information they hold. Hackers don't need to go anywhere but the data bureaus like Trans-Union, Experian and Equifax for their needs because it is all there in one nice neat package. It was thought, even assumed, that companies like Equifax would go to any limit to prevent hackers from getting into their data. Well, we were all wrong.

Equifax was criticized recently for not making improvements to their security after a 2016 breach that outed the tax records from several major corporations. The criticism became worse when it was found that these 143 million names and personal data were acquired through a simple website vulnerability. The company's chief information officer, David Webb, and chief security officer, Susan Mauldin, are retiring, effective immediately, but the fact that they weren't fired may bother some of the 143 million, especially if they are connected to the breach. At least two congressional hearings on the Equifax breach have been announced, according to The Washington Post. Here's a message from Sen. Schumer to Equifax's CEO and Board of Directors...

"Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Thursday the company's chief executive and board of directors should step down unless they take five steps to correct their mishandling: notify affected consumers; provide free credit monitoring to them for at least 10 years, offer to freeze their credit for up to 10 years; remove forced arbitration clauses from their terms of use; and comply with fines or new standards that come out of investigations."

At one point Equifax was directing people to a fake phishing site; The Verge says, "...Equifax made a huge mistake by using a domain that doesn't have any trust attached to it [as opposed to hosting it on equifax.com]. In other words, these people have no idea what they are doing but they are trusted with the confidential information about millions of consumers that, f exposed, can ruin their lives. And the fact that the earlier breach in March of this year was not enough of a wakeup call to get their security people is very troubling considering what is at stake.

To cap it all off, Equifax is making it very hard for those whose data was breached to do anything about it. But this is typical of all the credit bureaus when you have found an error in their information. They make it so hard they hope you will just go away, and most people do. If you case is bad enough, here are some tips for suing a Credit Reporting Agency from Credit Infocenter.

Okay, here's what you're looking for...what to do. To remind you from my earlier post on Sept. 13: Check your bank account regularly; check your credit card accounts regularly; and check your credit report by the end of September. Like I said, these guys will lay low until the ruckus is over--people forget real quick but you shouldn't--but they will make use of your personal data sooner or later. Don't let it be you. Finally, here's the official word on what to do from the Federal Trade Commission.

Good luck!