Equifax, a company that offers credit monitoring and ID theft production solutions has suffered a massive data breach in which personal information of over 143 million American (almost half population of the United States) has been stolen.
The credit reporting firm which is one of the largest in the US announced today that it suffered a data breach between mid-May and July 2017. Data stolen during the hack includes social security number (SSN), birthdays, driver license numbers, dispute documents with personal identifying information for roughly 182,000 US citizens, credit card data of 209,000 US citizens.
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Apart from the those mentioned above, the hackers also stole some personal information of some Canadian and British residents using a US website application vulnerability to gain access to certain files.
Although Equifax said that they discovered the breach on the July 29, its still unknown why it took the company 6 weeks before informing the affected customers.
Three senior executives at Equifax, John Gamble (CFO), Joseph Loughran and Rodolfo Ploder sold almost $2 million worth of their shares just days after the company learned of this breach.
Equifax say they are investigating the incident and also advise customers to visit www.equifaxsecurity2017.com to check if their information has been compromised or not.