News is out that passport numbers of nearly half of the US population were stolen in Equifax Cyber Attack which took place last year. And the credit bureau agency admits that nearly 147 million were affected in the attack.
After the congressional inquiries, it is said that over 3200 passports numbers, 12,000 social security card numbers and data of 38,000 driver’s licenses were stolen through the portal.
All these details were disclosed in a statement issued by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Democrat of Massachusetts who serves as one the chamber’s banking committee heads.
Elizabeth alleged that the officials of Equifax had failed to fully disclose the scope of the compromised information in last September. And it was only when the former CEO of Equifax appeared before the congressional hearings; the said details came into light.
It is said that the company which sieves through the credit history of loan applicants has lost 18 % of its market value since disclosing the theft in 3Q last year.
Readers of Cybersecurity Insiders have to notify a fact over here that during the Congressional debate, the respected members of Congress wanted to get a clarification from Richard Smith- the former CEO of Equifax, whether consumers or credit bureau own the data collected by the firm.
This question was raised after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg admitted that his company did share the data of over 87 million American Facebook users with Cambridge Analytica, which was later used to influence the US 2016 polls in favor of the current US president Donald Trump.
Cambridge Analytica, now a defunct company is said to have acted on the directives of Russian President Vladimir Putin to make Donald Trump as US President in 2016.
Former US President Barack Obama disclosed the news to the media last year when FBI and CIA issued a joint report in which they admitted that the 2016 US polls were meddled by a foreign force, but failed to name the nation in specific for obvious reasons.
After winning the elections and taking oath as the US President in January last year, Donald Trump claimed all the allegations as baseless and stated that the inquiry made by FBI and CIA on the order of Obama was just a political witch hunt.
