15m Britons hit by credit agency hack

HaCKERS raided the personal records of up to 15.2million UK consumers during a cyberattack on Equifax in one of the worst security breaches in British history.

the attack on the credit checking agency exposed details of almost 700,000 Britons which could be in the hand of criminals. the remainder escaped as details such as passwords and usernames were not deciphered by the hackers.

Equifax realised the scale of the problem in July but only started writing to the 637,430 UK victims last night. it has given no compensation with those affected only being offered free use of Equifax’s own fraud protection products.

tory MP Charlie Elphicke, a member of the treasury Select Committee, said: ‘Equifax have serious questions to answer about how they have handled this entire scandal.’

the firm revealed it had been hacked last month when the file with 15.2million UK records from 2011 to 2016 stored in the US was hit.

any punishment will be decided by the information Commissioner’s office, which has the power to fine firms up to £500,000.