Credit reporting agency Equifax said Thursday a web application flaw exposed 143 million customer records to hackers. This is a startling breach for a company that ironically offers identity theft protection services.
The information exposed includes names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and in some cases, driver’s license numbers, according to a news release. Although most of those affected are U.S. consumers, Equifax says some “limited personal” information for U.K. and Canadian residents was affected.
Equifax also says the breach exposed credit card numbers for 209,000 U.S. consumers. The hackers also accessed what Equifax described as “dispute documents” containing personal information for 182,000 U.S. consumers.
Equifax is one of the largest aggregators of financial data related to U.S. consumers, and its records are used by a variety of other businesses to gauge a person’s creditworthiness. While not the largest breach on record, it’s certainly one of most sensitive.
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