Equifax Cyberattack

Equifax is a major agency involved with consumer reporting. The agency reported that hackers had access to the organization's data that sensitive information had been compromised. The attack on Equifax is one of the most severe to happen on personally sensitive data and is also ranked third among the major security threats reported since 2015. Equifax is based in Atlanta and is a tempting target because it is involved with handling large amounts of data for many companies and individuals. According to security consultants, hackers had gained access to the company's system by exploiting a major weak point from the company's website.

The company said that it discovered an intrusion to its system but had not found any unauthorized activities in the databases.

During this particular incident, hackers managed to retrieve credit card numbers, names, and date of births of consumers was also taken (Moskowitz, 2017). Hackers managed to siphon large personal information which included bank and employees accounts and keys used to unlock medical histories for consumers. This particular attack is rated 10 on a scale of 1-10. Before this incident, hackers had also managed to take essential salary data and W-2 tax from the website of this company and had also managed to steel W-2 tax data which offers online payroll and human resource services to large corporations (Miskowitz, 2017). Cybersecurity experts criticized Equifax for not having implemented proper security practices after suffering loss from the previous attacks. Experts noted that hackers also utilized a simple website vulnerability to steal crown jewels belonging to the company.

Equifax handles data for more than 91 million business and 820 million individuals. According to its website, the company also manages databases containing employees close to 7000 employers. Additionally, the company stores data which is supposed to be protected from security breaches (O'Shaughnessy, 2015). Therefore, the company should implement multiple layers of control so that if thieves break in they can be stopped before causing severe damages.

Hackers managed to break into the website of Equifax because of having weak security mechanism. The weaknesses within the database enabled the hackers to steal so much information relating to consumers and large corporations (Cerrato, 2016). Despite reporting the cybercrime attack to the law enforcement the company should also company need to hire a cybersecurity firm to audit the security vulnerabilities of its systems.

References:

Cerrato, P. (2016). Chapter 10 - Preparing for and coping with a Data Breach. 125-132.

Miskowitz, S. L. (2017). Chapter 4 - The Large Corporation. 69-96.

Moskowitz, S. L. (2017). Chapter 1 - The Global Cybercrime Industry. 3-22.

O'Shaughnessy, J. G. (2015). Chapter 12 - Charting the Best Future Course for yor Organisation. 163-176.

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