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Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

reuters.com

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Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#71

Post by astura »

simcop2387 wrote: post #63
toomuchtodo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I submitted a complaint to the CFPB requiring [1] Equifax to remove my credit record, due to their proven incompetence at protecting that data (citing their breech, several congresspeople grilling their CEO on CSPAN, etc). Its been 9 days and I haven't heard back from the CFPB yet (Equifax has 15 days to respond and up to 60 days to provide a final response), but Equifax has my complaint and even if it goes nowhere,…

Do you have more information on how to do this? I'm thinking that doing the same thing makes sense going forward.

CFPB complaints are extremely easy to submit, you can do it right here: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#72

Post by rgbrenner »

astura wrote: post #67
rgbrenner wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

freeze your credit report with Equifax, and then if any company requests it, they'll be denied (because you have to request it be unfrozen for them to receive it). If any company uses Equifax, you'll then be denied credit or they'll ask you to unfreeze it.. either way, you can complain to them, and make it clear you won't work with Equifax. Of course, in practice, this will mean you'll get denied credit from any comp…

That's not quite how credit freezes work, if they pull Equifax and only that bureau is frozen then they will usually just pull from another credit bureau. People who churn credit cards use this to their advantage - they often freeze the report with the most recent inquiries (usually Experian) to spread out inquiries more evenly over the three bureaus. I've never heard of anyone getting flat out denied for credit (bes…

Remember, these companies are paying Equifax for your credit report.

The point isnt to prevent any credit reporting.. but to prevent equifax specifically from earning money.

And no one is "denying themselves the ability to get credit" by refusing to unfreeze an equifax report. If the lender doesn't want to use one of the other credit agencies, then most people can find another lender. Those businesses need to know they'll lose business as long as theyre loyal to equifax.

It is unfortunate we don't have more leverage... this does leave a lot of avenues open for Equifax to continue making money. But every bit helps.

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#73

Post by ModernMech »

rdtsc wrote: post #36
Posibyte wrote: post #11

I feel like this has to do with Equifax basically not being punished in any major way over the last breach. Their stocks are still priced reasonably well, most of their board is still intact, and US citizens are still required to work with them for credit reasons. And the worst part is, I have no idea how I as a person could say "I don't want to do work with Equifax because I don't trust them." And if anybody has sug…

> Their stocks are still priced reasonably well, Exactly. And everyone is watching and learning a lesson from it - "If this goes unpunished, heck, we can get away with it too, screw all the security mumbo jumbo" In an investing and finance forum I saw people were gearing up to buy Equifax after the breach was announced. The idea was that price would dip then it would go back up. Maybe enough people did that.

If that's the case, it seems like the executives at Equifax who were dumping stock after they learned of the breach (but before it was reported) were jumping the gun. They should have just held on to it!

"Three senior executives including the company’s chief financial officer sold $1.8 million in shares three days after the company learned on July 29 hackers had breached personal data for up to 143 million Americans."

http://fortune.com/2017/09/29/equifax-board-executive-stock-...

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#74

Post by astura »

dsgfhasgjklas wrote: post #13
Posibyte wrote: post #11

I feel like this has to do with Equifax basically not being punished in any major way over the last breach. Their stocks are still priced reasonably well, most of their board is still intact, and US citizens are still required to work with them for credit reasons. And the worst part is, I have no idea how I as a person could say "I don't want to do work with Equifax because I don't trust them." And if anybody has sug…

> And the worst part is, I have no idea how I as a person could say "I don't want to do work with Equifax because I don't trust them." Freeze your account and complain to the service that uses it. Of course, you're not wrong—you have essentially zero leverage.

Freezing your account doesn't prevent you from data breaches, your account still exists in their database, they just say "its frozen" when someone requests it.

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#75

Post by geofft »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #43
geofft wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This contract is a renewal of a previous contract with Equifax (which is why it was a "critical service that couldn't lapse"), and it involves Equifax giving data to the IRS, not the IRS giving your tax returns to Equifax.

The IRS is most certainly giving Equifax data or they wouldn't have sent inspectors there to verify the integrity of IRS data. >Chief information officer Girza said the IRS sent inspectors to make sure no IRS data was compromised in the Equifax breach http://www.snopes.com/2017/10/05/equifax-contract-irs/

That is nowhere close to evidence that Equifax had tax returns.

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#76

Post by astura »

ModernMech wrote: post #73
rdtsc wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their stocks are still priced reasonably well, Exactly. And everyone is watching and learning a lesson from it - "If this goes unpunished, heck, we can get away with it too, screw all the security mumbo jumbo" In an investing and finance forum I saw people were gearing up to buy Equifax after the breach was announced. The idea was that price would dip then it would go back up. Maybe enough people did that.

If that's the case, it seems like the executives at Equifax who were dumping stock after they learned of the breach (but before it was reported) were jumping the gun. They should have just held on to it! "Three senior executives including the company’s chief financial officer sold $1.8 million in shares three days after the company learned on July 29 hackers had breached personal data for up to 143 million Americans.…

That's short sighted - how you make money is sell when high, buy when low.

So you sell right before the dip and then buy again at the bottom of the dip. They knew there was going to be a dip.

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#77

Post by astura »

rgbrenner wrote: post #72
astura wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not quite how credit freezes work, if they pull Equifax and only that bureau is frozen then they will usually just pull from another credit bureau. People who churn credit cards use this to their advantage - they often freeze the report with the most recent inquiries (usually Experian) to spread out inquiries more evenly over the three bureaus. I've never heard of anyone getting flat out denied for credit (bes…

Remember, these companies are paying Equifax for your credit report. The point isnt to prevent any credit reporting.. but to prevent equifax specifically from earning money. And no one is "denying themselves the ability to get credit" by refusing to unfreeze an equifax report. If the lender doesn't want to use one of the other credit agencies, then most people can find another lender. Those businesses need to know th…

> If the lender doesn't want to use one of the other credit agencies, then most people can find another lender. Those businesses need to know they'll lose business as long as theyre loyal to equifax

lol, yeah, good luck with that when you go to get a mortgage.

Mortgage lenders pull all 3 reports, not just one. There is a ton of laws around mortgage underwriting that need to be followed. They technically may be able to underwrite a mortgage with only two credit reports but I doubt any mortgage lender actually will or if they did they'd be charging outlandish interest rates. If you're hiding a report they will assume its because you're hiding something negative that's on the report.

Things don't work like you would like in the real world, only in theory. You are delusional if you believe Chase having to pull Experian instead of Equifax once every million credit applications is going to somehow effect Equifax's bottom line.

If your landlord uses a background checking service that uses Equifax and the background check service comes back with "frozen report" and you say "I demand you use a different background checking service that doesn't use Equifax" then your landlord is just going to say lol and rent to the person who isn't being extremely difficult, as its a sign you're going to be a difficult tenant.

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#78

Post by g051051 »

tyingq wrote: post #69
g051051 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The script they hosted was legitimate. The Akamai content that it loaded, was legitimate. But Fireclick let the domain lapse, and someone else is now impersonating them and serving malware, and not just to Equifax, either. Why is the story "Equifax hacked again" instead of "Akamai serving content from known spammer site"?

I'm reasonably sure the whole Fireclick infrastructure was abandoned, probably years ago. So Equifax's part was not having some mechanism in place to remove 3rd party references for 3rd parties that aren't delivering anymore. I strongly suspect that predated the change in ownership of the domain, which was almost a year ago. The fireclick.com domain is gone. The parent company (Digital River) doesn't mention offering…

I don't know, how can you reasonably defend from that sort of domain hijacking/repurposing? We fundamentally have to trust DNS at some level, but domain names are somewhat transient in nature. Is it fair to single out Equifax here, or is this just an example of an unsolved problem in the industry?

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#79

Post by hodgesrm »

Posibyte wrote: post #11

I feel like this has to do with Equifax basically not being punished in any major way over the last breach. Their stocks are still priced reasonably well, most of their board is still intact, and US citizens are still required to work with them for credit reasons. And the worst part is, I have no idea how I as a person could say "I don't want to do work with Equifax because I don't trust them." And if anybody has sug…

> And the worst part is, I have no idea how I as a person could say "I don't want to do work with Equifax because I don't trust them."

A good start might be never employ anyone who has worked in Equifax IT. There should be some sort of professional repercussions for being involved with an organization as incompetent as this lot seem to be.

Re: Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack

#80

Post by [deleted] »

astura wrote: post #77
rgbrenner wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember, these companies are paying Equifax for your credit report. The point isnt to prevent any credit reporting.. but to prevent equifax specifically from earning money. And no one is "denying themselves the ability to get credit" by refusing to unfreeze an equifax report. If the lender doesn't want to use one of the other credit agencies, then most people can find another lender. Those businesses need to know th…

> If the lender doesn't want to use one of the other credit agencies, then most people can find another lender. Those businesses need to know they'll lose business as long as theyre loyal to equifax lol, yeah, good luck with that when you go to get a mortgage. Mortgage lenders pull all 3 reports, not just one. There is a ton of laws around mortgage underwriting that need to be followed. They technically may be able t…

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