Equifax admits true scale of breach

PERSONAL details of 15 million people may have been stolen by hackers.

Equifax last night dramatically increased the scale of what was already one of the biggest data breaches in history.

Driving licence numbers, telephone numbers, secret questions and answers, and even parts of credit card details may have been “accessed”, the credit referencing agency admitted.

The US giant said last month that up to 400,000 UK nationals may have been affected. But it has now admitted the incident was far worse than first feared.

It said a “file containing 5.2 million UK records dating from 2011 to 2016 was attacked”.

Most of those were records that may have contained names and dates of birth, but not both together. But there is bigger concern about the 693,665 people whose more sensitive details have been stolen and Equifax will be contacting them by post.

They include 637,430 whose phone numbers were on file, while 29,188 may have had their driving licence number accessed. Another 14,961 who signed up for the firm had parts of their membership details taken – including usernames, passwords and parts of their credit card details. A further 12,086 had the email address linked to their Equifax account on the file. The firm claimed the information was scrambled, making it difficult to access in a usable form.

There is no evidence the data has been used for fraud.

The breach, which led to the resignation of chief executive Richard Smith, is believed to have taken place over the summer but was only revealed last month. Patricio Remon, president of Equifax Ltd (UK), said: “I would like to extend my sincere apologies to anyone who has been concerned about or impacted by this criminal act.”

The firm stressed that it would not phone consumers for security reasons. Anyone with concerns can call 0800 587 1584.