Big Breaches: Cybersecurity Lessons for Everyone

© Neil Daswani and Moudy Elbayadi 2021

N. Daswani, M. ElbayadiBig Breacheshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-6655-7_4

4. The Equifax Breach

Neil Daswani¹   and Moudy Elbayadi²

(1)

Pleasanton, CA, USA

(2)

Carlsbad, CA, USA

 

In September 2017, the largest financial identity breach of US consumers at its time was announced by Equifax. At the time of the breach, Equifax was one of the top three credit reporting agencies in the United States and a custodian of credit information for 820 million consumers and 91 million businesses. Over 145 million records were stolen by four suspected and later indicted Chinese hackers who were part of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, a part of the Chinese armed forces. Table 4-1 shows the number of names, addresses, ...