Stand up who HASN'T been hit in the Equifax mega-hack – whoa, whoa, sit down everyone

Re: Equifax?

Loved that program but of course it got sacrificed in the downward spiral of increasingly banal "science" documentaries that now require some sort of celebrity standing overlooking the Serengeti while wittering about Black Holes and saying "Brilliant" a lot.

Re: "offering every US citizen a year's free identity theft monitoring for those who apply"

Sir,

I agree wholeheartedly, it really grates on me to see loose... AARGH.

But the problem, as far as I can see is that children are not encouraged to read any more, which is the quickest and best way to promote correct spelling.

My daughter was reading books from an early age, and therefore her vocabulary and spelling are much better than most of her peers.

If you've never seen the words written down, then phonetic errors like this are bound to be more and more common.

Re: "offering every US citizen a year's free identity theft monitoring for those who apply"

"It's lose, lose, LOSE FFS!"

gsus u r anl. if u cn rd ths sht ytf r u btchn abt a xtr o in a wrd?

i thnk ppl hu ntce splng mstks r actlly a bt wrd. I m qite splng blnd whn rdng stff, spclly stff tht i wrt.

Re: Equifux...You forgot Experian...

The world will be a better place when Experian is completely and utterly forgotten.

Cut'N'Paste

You must have missed last weeks announcement on UK Data Protection which despite the spin is a re-skinned UK GDPR. However as GDPR will be incorporated into UK law, that's not a surprise or anything to thhank Westminster for.

Youy can bet your ass it won;t stop GCHQ breaching your ECHR, which we are not leaving :-)

This cluster-fuck of a data breach might give thhe US some food for thought into perhaps adopting GDPR themselves.... but I expect not and a Presidential pardon for his Exec mates at Equifax.

"Won't help our colonial cousins, will it?"

GDPR applies to any entity either operating in Europe or handling a European citizen's data. Violation of GDPR does not require a breach, as GDPR mandates security-by-design from the inception of a product (and actually mandates full documentation of that compliance.

A quick scan of the relevant SEC page identifies at lest 15 EU-based subsidiaries. Even post-brexit there's more than enough EU exposure to make enforcement and fines desirable and viable.

Not enough American companies have realised that GDPR very much applies to them. It'll be particularly tasty when fines start being doled out to those who are exposed because they're routing all their revenue through Ireland.

Re: This CEO sure isn't getting his bonus anyway:

We'll see. Worth noting that the accounts of Maersk indicate that bonuses are very small part of the board remuneration, something like $2m cash incentives against a basic pay of $13m last year.

Re: This CEO sure isn't getting his bonus anyway:

CEO's always get their bonus, it's just labelled differently when they get it!

Re: Co-incidence?

This reminds me of an old joke.

Q: what is the difference between car salesman and computer salesman?

A: car salesmen know when they are lying.

Re: Equifax credit score

If the miscreants could read it, could they write it?

Can Equifax prove that no records were added or altered?

Re: Equifax credit score

well, that breach IS a problem for real equifucks customers, like big business, because they rely on reliability / accuracy of this data when dishing out credit, at least statistically. So, the big business thinking is: if our dearest, safest business partner got pwned, who's to guarantee that all those credit scorings we pull from them have not been already "adjusted" and we'll be screwed when our marks turn out to be unable to pay back? (this is nonsense of course, but the big business will react with a flinch).

Also a potential surge in scams will be directed against those marks' accounts held by big business, mostly banks. Not that they give a flying monkey about little people, but increased "traffic" in complaints and investigations falls upon their head, financially, as they will have to allocate resources (and money) to deal with this. So, they won't be happy.

On top of everything, the issue of business "trust" is in large part smoke and mirrors (you're big, you project sense of reliability, security. It's called - reputation) until something like this breach occurs. A bit of a rude awekening to equifucks customers, to realize that all those assurances about security and reputation are worth - nothing. Ooops. In the spirit of schandenfreunde - exactly the same feeling little people experience when their bank, who cares oh so greatly about their security, and is so well-protected NOTHING can happen - gets hacked. What goes round, comes round.

Re: Equifax credit score

"That Equifax had a breach isn't their problem at all."

It is a bit, because those same customers also supply the data (which is what makes this such a great business, you get data from your customers and give it back to them). They can only do that if there's plausible deniability around customer security, and events like this make it blatantly obvious that data isn't being held as securely as the public and regulators much expect.

Re: Equifax credit score

@ Jim Mitchell

I doubt it. Equifax's customers are not consumers, they are businesses that want to know something about somebody before they extend an offer of credit. That Equifax had a breach isn't their problem at all.

Wall Street isn't particularly thrilled with Equifax either. As of mid-day Friday, the company's stock was down nearly 14 per cent.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/08/lawyers_line_up_to_sue_equifax/