The New York Times reported “that hackers had gained access to company data that potentially compromised sensitive information for 143 million American consumers, including Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers.”  The September 7, 2017 report entitled “Equifax Says Cyberattack May Have Affected 143 Million Customers” included the bad news:

Potentially adding to criticism of the company, three senior executives, including the company’s chief financial officer, John Gamble, sold shares worth almost $1.8 million in the days after the breach was discovered.

The report included these comments:

An F.B.I. spokesperson said the agency was aware of the breach and was tracking the situation.

Last year, identity thieves successfully made off with critical W-2 tax and salary data from an Equifax website. And earlier this year, thieves again stole W-2 tax data from an Equifax subsidiary, TALX, which provides online payroll, tax and human resources services to some of the nation’s largest corporations.

Hopefully this is a wake-up call about cyber risk and the need for cyber insurance and incidence response plans.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *