2.5M more hit in Equifax hack
CREDIT REPORT company Equifax says an additional 2.5 million Americans may have been affected by a massive security breach this summer, bringing the total possible victims to 145.5 million.
Equifax said the company it hired to do an examination of the breach, Mandiant, has concluded its investigation and plans to release the results “promptly.”
The update comes as former Equifax CEO Richard Smith is scheduled to testify before Congress starting Tuesday. He’s expected to face bipartisan anger from politicians who have expressed outrage that a company tasked with securing vast amounts of personal data was unable to keep its security software up to date. Equifax also faces several state and federal inquiries and class-action lawsuits.
Smith, who resigned after overseeing the company for a dozen years, said the hacker is still unknown. The information stolen included names, Social Security numbers, birth dates and addresses.
In addition, credit card information for about 209,000 consumers was stolen, as well as certain documents with personally identifying information for approximately 182,000 consumers.