Equifax | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The United States Department of Justice today announced charges against 4 Chinese military hackers who were allegedly behind the Equifax data breach that exposed the personal and financial data of nearly 150 million Americans. In a joint press conference held today with the Attorney General William Barr and FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich, the DoJ officials labeled the state-sponsored hacking campaign as the largest hacking case ever uncovered of this type. The four accused, Wu Zhiyong (吴志勇), Wang Qian (王乾), Xu Ke (许可) and Liu Lei (刘磊), have also been indicted for their involvement in hacking and stealing trade secrets, intellectual property and confidential information from several other U.S. businesses in recent years. In September 2017, credit reporting agency Equifax disclosed it had become a victim of a massive cyberattack that left highly sensitive data of nearly half of the U.S. population in the hands of hackers. As The Hacker News reported earlier, hackers compr...

Equifax, one of the three largest credit-reporting firms in the United States, has to pay up to $700 million in fines to settle a series of state and federal investigations into the massive 2017 data breach that exposed the personal and financial data of nearly 150 million Americans—that's almost half the country. According to an official announcement by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today, Equifax has agreed to pay at least $575 million in fines, but this penalty could rise to up to $700 million depending on the amount of compensation people claim. Up to $425 million of the fines will go to a fund that will provide credit monitoring services to affected customers and compensate anyone who bought such services from the company and paid other related expenses as a result of the breach . Rest $175 million and $100 million will go to civil penalties across 50 states and to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), respectively. Besides the penalty, the co...

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been a cornerstone of organizational cybersecurity. Nearly as old as the discipline of cybersecurity itself, it aims to help organizations identify and address potential security issues before they become serious problems. Yet, in recent years, the limitations of this approach have become increasingly evident.  At its core, Vulnerability Management processes remain essential for identifying and addressing weaknesses. But as time marches on and attack avenues evolve, this approach is beginning to show its age. In a recent report, How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management (Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, 8 November 2024, Mitchell Schneider Et Al.), we believe Gartner® addresses this point precisely and demonstrates how organizations can – and must – shift from a vulnerability-centric strategy to a broader Exposure Management (EM) framework. We feel it's more than a worthwhile read an...

Atlanta-based consumer credit reporting agency Equifax has been issued a £500,000 fine by the UK's privacy watchdog for its last year's massive data breach that exposed personal and financial data of hundreds of millions of its customers. Yes, £500,000—that's the maximum fine allowed by the UK's Data Protection Act 1998, though the penalty is apparently a small figure for a $16 billion company. In July this year, the UK's data protection watchdog issued the maximum allowed fine of £500,000 on Facebook over the Cambridge Analytica scandal , saying the social media giant Facebook failed to prevent its citizens' data from falling into the wrong hands. Flashback: The Equifax Data Breach 2017 Equifax suffered a massive data breach last year between mid-May and the end of July, exposing highly sensitive data of as many as 145 million people globally. The stolen information included victims' names, dates of birth, phone numbers, driver's licens...

The largest known hack of user data in the history just got tripled in size. Yahoo, the internet company that's acquired by Verizon this year, now believes the total number of accounts compromised in the August 2013 data breach, which was disclosed in December last year, was not 1 billion—it's 3 Billion . Yes, the record-breaking Yahoo data breach affected every user on its service at the time. Late last year, Yahoo revealed the company had suffered a massive data breach in August 2013, which affected 1 billion user accounts . The 2013 hack exposed user account information, including names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of births, hashed passwords (using MD5), and, in some cases, "encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers," Yahoo said in 2016. At that time, Yahoo did confirm that hackers did not obtain bank account details or credit card information tied to the Yahoo accounts. The data breach was attributed to state-sponsored ...

Equifax data breach was bigger than initially reported, exposing highly sensitive information of more Americans than previously revealed. Credit rating agency Equifax says an additional 2.5 million U.S. consumers were also impacted by the massive data breach the company disclosed last month, bringing the total possible victims to 145.5 million from 143 million. Equifax last month announced that it had suffered a massive data breach that exposed highly sensitive data of hundreds of millions of its customers, which includes names, social security numbers, dates of birth and addresses. In addition, credit card information for nearly 209,000 customers was also stolen, as well as certain documents with personally identifying information (PII) for approximately 182,000 Equifax consumers. The breach was due to a critical vulnerability ( CVE-2017-5638 ) in Apache Struts 2 framework, which Apache patched over two months earlier (on March 6) of the security incident. Equifax was e...

After Equifax massive data breach that was believed to be caused due to a vulnerability in Apache Struts , Cisco has initiated an investigation into its products that incorporate a version of the popular Apache Struts2 web application framework. Apache Struts is a free, open-source MVC framework for developing web applications in the Java programming language, and used by 65 percent of the Fortune 100 companies, including Lockheed Martin, Vodafone, Virgin Atlantic, and the IRS. However, the popular open-source software package was recently found affected by multiple vulnerabilities, including two remote code execution vulnerabilities—one discovered earlier this month, and another in March—one of which is believed to be used to breach personal data of over 143 million Equifax users . Some of Cisco products including its Digital Media Manager, MXE 3500 Series Media Experience Engines, Network Performance Analysis, Hosted Collaboration Solution for Contact Center, and Unified C...

Equifax has suffered one of the largest data breaches in history that has left highly sensitive data of as many as 143 million people —that's nearly half of the US population—in the hands of hackers. Based on the company's investigation, some unknown hackers managed to exploit a security flaw on the Equifax website and gained unauthorized access to certain files between mid-May and July 2017. The information accessed primarily include full names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, addresses and, in some cases, driver's license numbers—most of the information that's banks, insurance companies, and other businesses use to confirm a consumer identity. The company added that 209,000 credit card numbers were also obtained by the attackers, along with "certain dispute documents with personal identifying information for approximately 182,000 U.S. consumers." Equifax is one of the three major organizations in the United States that calculates credit scor...

It's ironic—the company that offers credit monitoring and ID theft protection solutions has itself been compromised, exposing personal information of as many as 143 million Americans—that's almost half the country. Equifax, one of the three largest credit reporting firm in the United States, admitted today that it had suffered a massive data breach somewhere between mid-May and July this year, which it actually discovered on July 29—that means the data of 143 million people were exposed for over 3 months. However, it's unknown why Equifax waited 6 weeks before informing their millions of affected customers about the massive security breach. Based on Equifax's investigation, unknown hackers exploited a security vulnerability on its website to gain unauthorized access to certain files. Stolen data includes consumers' names, Social Security numbers, and birth dates for 143 million Americans, and in some instances, driving licence numbers and credit card n...