According to reports by Equifax itself, the credit-reporting firm’s secure customer information has been breached.
Equifax reported that over 143 million of its U.S. customers may have been affected by the breach, wherein unauthorized users had access to the company’s data from mid-May through July of this year.
Private identifying information such as birth dates, addresses, names, driver’s-license numbers, and Social Security numbers were obtained by the unauthorized users. Equifax also reported that “credit card numbers for approximately 209,000 U.S. consumers, and certain dispute documents with personal identifying information for approximately 182,000 U.S. consumers, were accessed.”
Equifax has set up a website to help consumers determine if the security of their personal information was compromised by the breach.
The breach was apparently discovered on July 29, and if the estimates currently being made about the scope of the unauthorized access are true, this would be the largest credit-card-data hack in the history of America.
