An attack on EQUIFAX culminates in the theft of privileged information from 143 million users

Today there is much talk about the security problem they have had in the company EQUIFAX, something that can put many more people at risk than you can imagine. Before continuing and to know exactly what we are talking about, tell you that this company, although unknown to many, today is considered by many professionals in the financial sector as one of the largest and most important credit reporting institutions.

Due to the type of company it is, as you may be imagining, its servers had millions of people's data stored since, literally, EQUIFAX was in charge of calculating the risk involved in granting a credit to a consumer, which in turn determines whether or not this particular user can access loans or qualify for the purchase of, for example, a car or a house. The hacker attack received has resulted in them being stolen some 143 million data from different users, the vast majority residing in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.

They steal privileged data from EQUIFAX from millions of its users

With all this in mind, you will surely imagine that this company, of each of the users on whom it had data, saved inside information of them, information where details such as their full name, identification numbers, address, telephone numbers, credit history, credit card numbers, date of birth, social security numbers and even numbers of the driver's licenses that said user may have.

Due to the enormous magnitude of the attack carried out, it has already been considered by many as the most important in recent years. As a detail, I would like to tell you about the Target case because it is already closed and the financial fine has been imposed. In 2013 this company suffered an attack where the data of more than 41 million customers was literally stolen, this meant a fine for lawsuits from the users themselves of no less than 18,5 million dollars. Imagine now when instead of 41 million users we speak, as is the case, of 143 million users so we speak of a billions of dollars fine.

A group of hackers has been stealing user data from EQUIFAX for almost 3 months.

According to the company itself, the attack appears to be a reality and this has occurred through the exploitation of a vulnerability they had in their web application. It has been EQUIFAX itself that has confirmed that hackers have been taking advantage of this problem from May of this year until July 29, when it was detected and solved. Among the stolen data highlight 209.000 credit card numbers y more than 182.000 'dispute documents' where personal data of clients is included. If you want to know if your data has been stolen, highlight that the company has deployed a web page where to check it.

In the words of Richard F Smith, current CEO of EQUIFAX:

This is clearly a disappointing event for our company, and one that strikes at the heart of who we are and what we do. I apologize to consumers and our business customers for the concern and frustration this is causing them.

Several have been the security experts recognized worldwide who have not hesitated to classify this attack as one of the worst, but the worst, in history since talking about 143 million people is doing it, to put this data in perspective, more than half of the population of the entire United States. As a last detail, and perhaps the most important for all users in Spain, it should be noted that EQUIFAX was one of the collaborating companies of the Spanish Financial Credit Institutions, that is the National Association of Credit Financial Establishments, which in our country groups together entities of all kinds (financial entities, telephone companies, supply companies, insurance companies, publishers, public administrations ...) and that are considered financial credit institutions.