Ummm - Equifax? Berk.

So, Equifax gets hacked in May. 200k names, address, SSNs, etc, are taken (at least). Late JULY!!! Equifax sniffs out the leak.

Suddenly, more than ten times the normal monthly amount of Equifax stock short sales are bought in a single day.

A day or two after all the short sales, (yesterday or the day before) Equifax announces the breach and their stock price TANKS (as you might expect).

1. Berk you for losing my SSN, as when I go to your site to see if I was one of the 200k, I get "you may have been affected", my wife does too.

2. Berk you x100 for using your inside knowledge to MAKE MONEY on this disaster. We should line up all 200k people and let them kick you and everyone involved in the nuts.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/08/suspect-trading-in-equifax-options-before-breach-might-have-generated-millions-in-profit.html

If that isn't insider trading, what is? 

This is a pretty serious leak, and that is in the wake of other breaches which are much larger.

The numbers I've seen are that they lost something like 143 Million personal details. Taking into account children, Equifax potentially lost something like 60% of the adult aged US populations personal details which are not easily changed, eg. social security numbers.

The fallout from this one is going to be long lasting. I'm particularly concerned as it opens up a lot of personal details from when I held security clearances and what I did. I'm less involved in that world now but I still talk to investigators on a pretty regular basis. Anyone tangentially related to that world needs to be really really careful. Not that the Office of Personnel Management leak already didn't put that information out there.

I've always detested the fact that a non governmental agency used something like a social security number to build an economic profile. My reasoning always was that that Social Security number provided access to a number of services through the US government (DL, Passport, Social Security, Medicare, Security Clearances, I-9) and if lost would cause irreparable harm. I'm glad to see that my disdain was firmly founded. Of course no one except the three that profited off this are going to receive any punishment so it's not like anything will change.

Just saw an equitable ad touting there security

Watch out registering for their protection services - they have a clause that forces arbitration and forbids class action lawsuits.  It's unclear if checking to see if you are one of the lucky many accepts their TOS.

monknomo said:

Watch out registering for their protection services - they have a clause that forces arbitration and forbids class action lawsuits.  It's unclear if checking to see if you are one of the lucky many accepts their TOS.

yea, there is the ultimate berk you from Equifax. I am sure I was one of the ones affected, I got an email from google the other day saying somebody tried to access my account

Not sure how I dodged the bullet, but not on the list, thank goodness. Someone will set up a class action before Monday and I hope a state AG or three will bark up their tree and the SEC can be bothered to look into the trading situation. 

The New York attorney general (and I'm sure others states AGs as well here shortly) said in no uncertain terms that the arbitration clause was unenforceable and to remove it yesterday.

People, freeze your credit now with all three credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union) for you, your wife/husband, and if your state allows your minor children.  Yes, it is a minor PITA if you are applying for a credit card, loan, etc but it's the best way to keep the jackwagons who now have your data from doing anything with it - at least on the credit front.  

A (hokey) analogy - Credit monitoring (which the credit bureaus would love to sell you)  is akin to an alarm that tells you the horse has left the barn, whereas a credit freeze (which the bureaus hate but are forced by law to offer) is a lock that keeps the horse in the barn.  

There is a great guide to credit freeze on clark howard's website if you want to learn more.  We locked ours 10 years ago after a DoD breach, and it has been easy enough to manage the temp unlocks (or thaws) when we needed to have it done.

Wife and I put a freeze on our credit when we went bankrupt in 2012. Never lifted it. Guess we're good, for once. 

Zo, how do you freeze your credit? Might be a good idea as all 3 of us are coming up as possible breaches. 

The infosec community is all up in arms about the state of the response efforts.

For my part, I'll say that I'm not checking the site with my info, at least not for a week or so. The "was my info breached" checker looks like a new breach waiting to happen. I don't think people appreciate how close IP address + last six of SSN is to having a full SSN in many cases. While the breached group is ~140m, the user group for checking to see if they're in the breached group is everyone with an SSN.

conesare2seconds said:

....Someone will set up a class action before Monda...

Cool.  So I can get $4.38 from the settlement and some a-hole lawyers will make 10's of millions.

BTW - I am sure there was insider trading, but any sales of stock by any of the principles of the company are not controlled by them (by law), at least not in the short term.

Anyone having trouble getting your free credit report from Equifax?  I'm planning on freezing my credit after all this mess, so started pulling credit reports, especially since one of my credit cards that offers a free FICO score shows my credit score has tanked 100 points in the last month due to a late payment.  Of course, they use Equifax to get my score.  No late payments that I know of.  I successfully pulled my Experian and Transunion reports, and they show no problems, but have made multiple attempts to get the Equifax report, and failed every time.  Now, I'm getting some sort of "Online Report Unavailable" error, and they want me to send a bunch of info by mail to the annual credit report place (which seems like an invitation for another avenue of identity theft) before they'll mail me a copy of my credit report.

Anyone having trouble getting your free credit report from Equifax? 

I imagine Equifax is having a run on credit reports at the moment that's probably overloaded their system. 

Currently checking the news to see if Irma knocked over the Equafax building. Doesn't look like we'll have any such luck though.

stuart in mn said:

Anyone having trouble getting your free credit report from Equifax? 

I imagine Equifax is having a run on credit reports at the moment that's probably overloaded their system. 

That was likely the problem the first few times I tried to get my credit report from them.  It kept unchecking my security question answers and telling me I needed to fill them out.  Then it gave a system error.  I'm worried my multiple attempts to get in then have caused them to lock out my online access.

I know what I'm doing tonight: Freezing my credit. Yay.

Just placed security freezes with all four credit companies. What a hassle. At least there were no fees associated with the freezes here in NC. 

EastCoastMojo said:

Just placed security freezes with all four credit companies. What a hassle. At least there were no fees associated with the freezes here in NC. 

What's the fourth one?  Innova or something?

In Ohio they charge $5.  I've done Experian and Transunion so far, but was hoping to get my report from Equifax and dispute whatever late payment notice was on it first.  But I guess the freeze is only for others, so I should still be able to freeze then dispute.

In reply to eastsidemav :

Yes, Innovis. 800-540-2505. Once the freeze has been placed they say they will mail the PIN to you. Experian says the same. Both of the other companies gave me a PIN right away.

I was not able to get any of my credit reports for free, as I had already requested them in the early part of the year. Fingers crossed that they have not hacked my credit.

My favorite part about this is that credit freezes will likely become wide spread now. That which means, obviously since everyone is doing it, you can't  apply for a new line of credit without lifting the freeze. So fiascos like the Wells Fargo ghost accounts now have a more limited pool, credit card companies will likely see a reduction in the number of new applicants, and changing banks is going to be a whole lot harder.

Good work berkeleying up the banking system at the same time Equifax you shiny happy people.

I have to send certified mail out with my SSN since I'm a resident of PA. Yay no one in my state legislature understands attack vectors or the implications of doing such a thing. There's so much fail to go around I can hardly stand it. Normally this would be funny but I'm getting a bit sick of changing credit card numbers every 3 months.

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2017/09/equifax-data-breach-what-do

Here's a good list from the FTC of things to consider. I highly recommend filing for your tax return as early as possible if you are expecting a refund. We see several attempts at tax refund fraud yearly and next year it could go way up.

Personally, I don't recommend doing a credit freeze unless your absolutely want to and don't plan on getting a loan/ credit card any time soon. Get a free copy of your credit report early next year from freecreditreport.gov and make sure no funny business is going on. 143 million people is no joke and once it's that large, it's better not to overreact IMO.

Yeah, freeze was the best option for me. I don't plan on getting any loans or cards in the near future, and my credit score is the best thing I have going for me financially right now. Really don't want some hacker jackwad to berkeley that up for me. A nice side benefit that comes with freezing your credit accounts (I did this before when my former employer was hacked and W2 info was leaked), is that you really see a noticeable reduction in junk mail from credit card companies and anyone else looking to finance something for you. 

Equifax still won't get me my credit report online, and they won't freeze my credit for me.  Guessing they think I'm not me.  This is really annoying, when the only negative info I know of (based on the credit score my credit card company provides) is coming from them.

Guess I get to do everything over snail mail and add another possible ID theft vector.