MASS ‘E UI’ HACK

143M IDs stolen

Hackers may have the names and Social Security numbers of 143 million Americans after a massive breach of the credit-reporting agency Equifax, the company revealed Thursday. That’s more than half oof the country’s adult population, according to Census figures. Cyber-intruders also had access to birth dates, addresses and driver’s-license numbers — as well as 209,000 credit-card numbers — while they trawled through Equifax’s servers between mid-May and July, officials said. “I deeply regret this incident and I apologize to evevery affected consumer and all of our partners,” CEO Richard Smith said. Equifax learned of the cyber-breach back on July 29. Three days later — but before word of the breach was made public — three company execs dumped a total of nearly $2 million in stock, Bloomberg reported late Thursday, raising issues of possible illegal insider trading.

Regulatory filings reviewed by Bloomberg showed that on Aug. 2, CFO John Gamble sold shares then worth $946,374.

That same day, Joseph Loughran, the president of US information solutions, exercised options to dispose of stock then worth $584,099, and Rodolfo Ploder, president of workforce solutions, sold $250,458 in stock.

The hack would not be revealed to the public for more than a month.

And once it was, Equifax share prices quickly tumbled. The hack was not revealed until late Thursday, and shares quickly tumbled 13 percent.

The hackers “exploited a US Web site application vulnerability to gain access,” a company statement said.

Equifax is offering every consumer in the nation free identity-theft protection and credit-file monitoring for a year, Smith said. The company also said it would mail notices to customers whose data have been retrieved by the hackers.