Equifax admits that 400,000 Brits hit by US breach

Equifax has finally revealed how many UK consumers have been caught up by its massive US breach, with the company confessing that the data on “fewer than 400,000 UK consumers” could have been compromised.
The firm claims that “due to a process failure” the UK data was stored in the US between 2011 and 2016. It insists that this was corrected last year but it seems historical data was still held in the States.
Equifax did, however, insist that UK systems have not been affected.
The information which has been compromised includes name, date of birth, email address and a telephone number, although it claims the information does not include any residential address information, password information or financial data.
In a statement, Equifax said: “Due to the nature of the information, Equifax believes identity takeover is unlikely for the UK consumers who had their data potentially accessed in this incident. It is however important that Equifax does all that it can to provide reassurance and protection to these people and it will be proactively contacting impacted customers in writing to offer them a free comprehensive identity protection service which will allow them to monitor their personal data, including their credit information and be alerted to any potential signs of fraudulent activity.”
Patricio Remon, president at Equifax, said: “We apologise for this failure to protect UK consumer data. Our immediate focus is to support those affected by this incident and to ensure we make all of the necessary improvements and investments to strengthen our security and processes going forward.”
Meanwhile, Equifax’s chief information officer Susan Mauldin and chief security officer David Webb have both been ousted in the wake of the attack.
Mauldin has “retired” and been replaced by Russ Ayres in an interim role, while Webb has “left” and been replaced by Mark Rohrwasser, also in an interim capacity.

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