Equifax takes down web page after reports of new hack • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by idbehold » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 10:31 PM UTC

leggomylibro wrote: post #93

mattnewton wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand how that would work, do you mean liquidate the company? If you mean actually take the shares from shareholders, wouldn’t the value of the stock go to near zero? Who would buy stock that could do that? But I agree with the general idea: they should go out of buisiness and whatever they have should be sold to reemburse people affected.

I wonder if the Feds could simply seize the company and issue treasury bonds to shareholders to cover the costs of their stake at the market's price. Eminent domain, or whatever legal term is latin for "we have the guns." Then, yeah, liquidate everything and distribute the proceeds amongst the victims. It would be expensive, but...so what? The budget is $2T, and if the fine vastly outweighs the value of the company,…

> issue treasury bonds to shareholders

who aren't members of the board

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

#102

Post by camus2 » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 10:31 PM UTC

jgladch wrote: post #18

We're just getting into an era where everything is hackable. We haven't even begun to understand the ramifications...! Privacy has been dead for a long time (did it ever exist?), but we're only just now being confronted with what this means. We have a choice to make: make the world work for everyone, or perish!

> We're just getting into an era where everything is hackable

It's true, however there seems to be a pattern incompetence when it comes to Equifax. When the first hack happened, if my memory serves me well, they started blaming Apache struts for the security breach, which might or might not be true, however the security patch was available for month when the hack occurred.

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

#103

Post by plandis » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 10:34 PM UTC

Where is the action from the federal government? Are any representatives working on legislation for better data protection / handling regulations?

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

#104

Post by camus2 » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 10:39 PM UTC

linarism wrote: post #6

The incompetence is mindblowing. Could this be a good argument for software engineers to get their professional license?

A professional license for what? CRUD apps? a CS education doesn't even make one a web security specialist. What's next? forcing corporations to use Microsoft technologies to stifle competition and innovation? like big vendors never release insecure products? like big consultancies never develop insecure apps?

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

#105

Post by pnathan » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 10:46 PM UTC

The credit services seem like a good candidate for nationalization or high levels of regulation.

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

#106

Post by jlarocco » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 10:53 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #34

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately you have no way to protect your tax returns from Equifax, which now has a contract with the IRS thanks to the infinite wisdom of our government. http://fortune.com/2017/10/04/equifax-irs-contract-hackers/

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.

Meanwhile, thanks to Equifax's amazing security, everybody else can get the same data for free ;-)

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

#107

Post by benmowa » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 11:03 PM UTC

noddy1 wrote: post #50

Solution to the Equifax debacle: 1) If the value of the individual damages related to this breach are in excess of the market cap of the equifax company, all company stock should be seized and distributed equally among those affected by the breach. 2) In the future, if a company controls this amount of sensitive data, they should have mandatory breach insurance. This means that they are covered for a government manda…

1) stock siezure would kill the market. no one wants to invest in a company if the company stock can get yanked anytime. also, a share of stock is worth what someone will pay me for (ie when i want to convert that stock to cash). who will buy this from me if all of a sudden a bunch of people will take the JG wentworth option and cash out now.

2) i absolutely agree with the insurance companies being on the hook. They alone will drive insurance rates that are through the roof if the company cant prove pen-testing, employee background checks etc... Unfortunately teh key to making insurance company care, is setting a high standard for breach victim payouts. ie if it only ends up costing an average of $0.10 per individual victim, i dont need to insure equifax for that much?

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

#108

Post by nodesocket » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 11:07 PM UTC

astura wrote: post #99

fny wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are their stocks priced reasonably well? They lost almost 1/3 of their value after the hack.

Still over $100 a share.

Absolute price has nothing to do with company value. For example BRK.A is $279,383.00 a share.

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

#109

Post by nodesocket » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 11:08 PM UTC

rgbrenner wrote: post #17

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…

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…

Freezing your credit can come back to bite you if you'd like to buy a house, lease an apartment, buy a car, or open a new credit card within the next 6 months.

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

#110

Post by poooogles » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 11:18 PM UTC

leggomylibro wrote: post #100

astura wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They absolutely should notice and investigate (and I think they are) even the initial sale, I don't see how that's not insider trading.

It pretty clearly is, I just mean that in reality that sort of thing isn't going to be prosecuted or pursued.

That is incorrect. The SEC regularly pursue people for insider trading [1]. It's one of the things that's normally pretty clear cut and hard for politicians to lean on.

1. https://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2016-212.html