Equifax has made an official announcement that the cybersecurity firm Mandiant has completed a review of the data breach which occurred on its database in May- June this year and has come to a conclusion on the consumers who were potentially impacted.
The credit reporting firm said that the incident which was announced to the media on September 7th, 2017 was true and the details have been thoroughly verified. The company’s interim CEO Paulino Do Rego Barros said that approximately 2.5 million additional US consumers were potentially impacted in the attack, for a total of 145.5 million.
Mandiant’s report also included the fact that there is no evidence that the leaked details were used or were being used by the hackers on dark web.
Coming to the number of potentially impacted Canadian citizens, Mandiant revealed that personal details of approximate 8,000 Canadian consumers were impacted.
The forensic investigation related to United Kingdom consumers of Equifax is also complete and a detailed report has been shared with National Cyber Security Center of UK. But for some reason, Equifax officials are reluctant to share the details with the media.
Meanwhile, a report published in Bloomberg accuses China’s state actors as the culprits behind the data breach of Equifax. The report says that there is evidence against China that includes the use of multiple sub-specialized hacking teams and hacking tools interfaced in the Chinese language.
Bloomberg also added in its report that the hack which took place in May/June this year on Equifax servers was done by People Liberation Army Units of China. These units are dedicated to hacking foreign governments and companies and there is evidence that they are being funded by the country’s military.
More details on this issue will be updated after October 8th,2017!
