What laws were broken in the Equifax breach?
The FTC alleges that Equifax violated the FTC Act’s prohibition against unfair and deceptive practices and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act’s Safeguards Rule, which requires financial institutions to develop, implement, and maintain a comprehensive information security program to protect the security, confidentiality, and …
What are the legal consequences of a data breach?
Sadly, it is still common practice for organizations to ignore PII encryption. That said, organizations that are the target of hackers face several serious issues including large government fines, the costs of litigation, eDiscovery, legal fees, costs of notification, brand depreciation and shareholder equity issues.
Did Equifax break the law?
The Federal Trade Commission said in a statement Monday that Equifax has agreed to initially pay at least $575 million in fines as part of the settlement with the federal government and states over its “failure to take reasonable steps to secure its network” that led to the breach.
What type of breach is ransomware?
What is ransomware? Ransomware is a type of malware (malicious software) distinct from other malware; its defining characteristic is that it attempts to deny access to a user’s data, usually by encrypting the data with a key known only to the hacker who deployed the malware, until a ransom is paid.
What will be the legal issues that the Organisation has to face if data is breached?
Lawsuits. Customers, vendors, and even employees may sue your company for having their data breached. This is especially true if your company was negligent in handling their data, but even if you are not ultimately responsible, you will still have legal fees associated with defending your case. Revenue loss.
Why did the Equifax data breach happen?
The vulnerability that caused the breach was vulnerability Apache Struts CVE-2017-5638. Apache Struts is a popular framework for creating Java Web applications maintained by the Apache Software Foundation. The Foundation issued a statement announcing the vulnerability and released a patch on March 7, 2017.
How was Equifax data breach?
The breach occurred after Equifax security officials failed to install a software upgrade that had been recommended to seal off digital intruders from obtaining access to the names, birthdates and Social Security numbers of the victims, the indictment says.
How did the Equifax breach occur?
The data breach into Equifax was principally through a third-party software exploit that had been patched, and Equifax failed to update their servers with it. Equifax had been using the open-source Apache Struts as its website framework for systems handling credit disputes from consumers.
How did hackers breach Equifax?
On May 13, for instance, the indictment says that one of the hackers ran a Structured Query Language command to identify general details about an Equifax data table, then sampled a select number of records from the database. Eventually, they went on to upload so-called web shells to gain access to Equifax’s web server.
What do you need to know about Equifax data breach?
What You Should Do Find out whether your information is potentially at risk. Equifax has set up a website that allows consumers to determine whether their information was potentially compromised. Sign up for credit monitoring. Equifax announced that it would provide free credit monitoring to all U.S. Freeze your credit. Check your accounts.
What you should know about Equifax data breach?
What you should know about the Equifax data breach. Equifax gathers data from credit card companies, banks, lenders, and retailers without having to notify consumers and can possess critical information such as Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and occasionally driver’s license numbers.
What you can do about that Equifax data breach?
CONSIDER SIGNING-UP FOR A FREE YEAR OF CREDIT MONITORING
What you should do after Equifax data breach?
Check if you were affected. The first step might be to visit equifaxsecurity2017.com.