Equifax Inc., one of three major U.S. credit reporting agencies, or in other words, a company who has access to your most personal information from social security number, driver\u2019s license, to credit cards.<\/p>\n

The company receives all of this personal data most likely from your bank provider, and their \u201cdata breach it discovered on July 29\u201d (Wired<\/a><\/em>), is one of the most high-profile security breaches in its\u2019 history. In fact, Equifax stated that 143 million customers\u2014almost half of America\u2014were affected by this breach, and from that number, 209,000 of the U.S. consumers had their credit card numbers exposed.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

So why does all this matter? Equifax has most likely put your personal information at risk of being available online. And this data \u201cpackaged together sells for upwards of $30 per identity on online black markets, according to Mark Nunnikhoven, head of cloud research for cybersecurity firm Trend Micro.\u201d He adds, \u201cit\u2019s enough to allow cyberthieves to take over you online\u201d (qtd. in CNN<\/a>).<\/p>\n

If this isn\u2019t still clear to you, it means you probably won\u2019t pass a credit check, thus, making it impossible for you to take out any loans. And on top of that, for example, \u201c[if] someone gets a driver\u2019s license in your name and runs a red light or gets a speeding ticket, you\u2019re on the hook,\u201d according to CNN<\/a>. CNN adds, that \u201c[recovering] from identity theft isn\u2019t easy,\u201d to say the least, and \u201cyou could have to provide months or years of information to clear your name.\u201d<\/p>\n

The potential for economic disaster is detrimental. So if you\u2019re poor, you\u2019re basically screwed. The worst part is, since \u201cEquifax still hasn\u2019t given reliable information on who exactly was affected,\u201d according to Quartz<\/a>, that means everyone has to play victim and take responsibility on minimizing potential damages\u2014damages, again, ranging from \u201cthieves using stolen identities to file taxes, obtain drivers\u2019 licenses, run up medical bills or commit crimes\u201d (Quartz<\/a>)\u2014this not only takes up time, but money.<\/p>\n

In a 2016 survey by the Identity theft Resource Center<\/a>, out of 300 participants who were victims of identity theft, \u201c52% earned household incomes below $50,000 per year, and 33% earned less than $25,000,\u201d as well as an average of \u201c$1,343 in stolen assets\u201d for the average victim for identity theft costs\u2014and on top of that, \u201c31% lost their home\u201d (Quartz<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Now imagine if half the United States was affected, which is what Equifax put us in risk of. Sounds like another depression just waiting to happen. Basically, this Equifax breach can affect you in the most difficult of ways messing up your life in so many countless ways.<\/p>\n

On top of its affect on us, who matters, Equifax\u2019s \u201cshares [dropped] more than 8 percent in after-hours trading,\u201d according to Bloomberg<\/a><\/em>. And following the massive security breach, Equifax executives sold \u201cnearly $2 million in shares of credit bureau Equifax Inc,\u201d actions compared to \u201cinsider trading,\u201d said Reuters<\/a><\/em>. These stock sales are currently being investigates by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as the Federal Trade Commission.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

On September 15^{th<\/sup> of 2017, the} Equifax<\/a> released a statement on their site, announcing the retirement of their CIO and CSO, as well as offering \u201cfree credit monitoring and identity theft protection to all U.S. consumers.\u201d If you haven’t already, it’s time to start taking some precautions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Equifax Inc., one of three major U.S. credit reporting agencies, or in other words, a company who has access to your most personal information from social security number, driver\u2019s license, to credit cards. The company receives all of this personal data most likely from your bank provider, and their \u201cdata breach it discovered on July […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1144,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/j469.ascjclass.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/j469.ascjclass.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/j469.ascjclass.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/j469.ascjclass.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/j469.ascjclass.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3208"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/j469.ascjclass.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3213,"href":"http:\/\/j469.ascjclass.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208\/revisions\/3213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/j469.ascjclass.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/j469.ascjclass.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/j469.ascjclass.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}