After news broke that credit reporting agency Equifax’s system had been repeatedly breached by hackers between May and July, the company has now set up a website “to help consumers determine if their information has been potentially impacted and to sign up for credit file monitoring and identity theft protection.”
Really?
So Equifax now wants everyone to sign up for identity protection with the same company whose customers just had their identities hacked? Riiiight.
The hack was said to have compromised up to 143 million Americans' sensitive personal information, including their social security numbers, addresses, birth dates and, for some people, driver’s license numbers. Despite the massive breach, Equifax’s Chairman and CEO Richard Smith said that his company is “focused” on protecting consumers' vital information.
Here’s what Smith had to say:
This is clearly a disappointing event for our company, and one that strikes at the heart of who we are and what we do. I apologize to consumers and our business customers for the concern and frustration this causes. We pride ourselves on being a leader in managing and protecting data, and we are conducting a thorough review of our overall security operations. We also are focused on consumer protection and have developed a comprehensive portfolio of services to support all U.S. consumers, regardless of whether they were impacted by this incident.
If Equifax was such a "leader" in protecting data, then they would have, you know, protected that data.
On top of that, it turns out three Equifax executives sold "almost $2 million worth of the company's shares just days after it learned of a hack that might've exposed the personal details of almost half of the U.S. population."
Looks like it's "under the mattress" time!