MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Equifax announced they will be offering free identity theft protection and credit file monitoring to all U.S. Citizens after a cybersecurity incident that impacts more than a 140 million U. S consumers.
According to the release, the criminals exploited a U.S. website application vulnerability to gain access to consumer files.
Equifax Chairman and Cheif Executive officer Richard Smith said they became of aware of the cyber security breach on July 29 and contracted a security company to investigate the impact of the hack.
The release says the company informed Equifax the hack happened from mid-May through July of 2017, but that they didn’t find any evidence that the hackers gained access to Equifax’s core consumer and commercial credit reporting databases.
Equifax says hackers gained access to names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and some driver’s license numbers. Along with more than 200,000 U.S credit card numbers, dispute documents with personal information for more than 180,000 consumers.
Some UK and Canadian resident info was also hacked, and Equifax says they are working with local governments on what needs to happen next.
Equifax created the website www.equifaxsecurity2017.com to help the consumer know if their information has been impacted and to sign up for a free credit file monitoring and identity theft protection. the website, Equifax will send direct mail notices to consumers whose credit card numbers or dispute documents with personal identifying information were impacted.
Equifax will also send direct mail notices to consumers whose credit card numbers or dispute documents with personal identifying information were impacted.
CEO Smith said, “I’ve told our entire team that our goal can’t be simply to fix the problem and move on. Confronting cybersecurity risks is a daily fight. While we’ve made significant investments in data security, we recognize we must do more. And we will.”
