Equifax data breach affects millions in UK
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41205415

Evidently this affects millions of UK households in one way or another.

It's ironic and extremely worrying that a company engaged in ID theft monitoring amongst many other things should now find itself apparently the victim of people who're very likely going to be involved in just that. No doubt the risk to us all will become apparent in coming days... :erm:

I can't be alone in thinking that the ever increasing trend towards huge companies holding vast amounts of our confidential information often without the knowledge of those concerned has to stop. The numbers of victims here is staggering and apparently there could be over 40m victims in the UK!

Re: Equifax data breach affects millions in UK
 

Sounds like they got all sorts of info from the US accounts but not so clear if it's just logins from the UK or more.

Dodgy as hell that they waited a month to let people know it happened and in the mean time execs were selling off shares.

Re: Equifax data breach affects millions in UK
 

Yes it's all very worrying for a lot of people. I have no idea what sort of information they might hold about people who aren't subscribers to their services in some way or other but I gather other major companies like BT, British Gas etc. use them with regard to their own customers so presumably Equifax has information on a whole lot of people who're totally unaware of it.

This is one of the reasons I try to keep my online activities to a minimum but slowly and surely we're all being pushed into doing more and more stuff online which is all fine until something goes wrong, sensitive data goes astray, the guilty companies are slapped on the wrist and we're issued with yet another series of 'lessons have been learned' assurances which hold about as much water as a sieve.

When are the authorities going to get tough about this and prevent such vast amounts of data being held by the same people? The bigger these companies get, the more we're in a situation with an ever increasing number of eggs all on the same basket. By the time the regulatory bodies do what they do, it's too late, they can impose fines but the data has been stolen and millions of people's lives are affected.

Re: Equifax data breach affects millions in UK
 

It sounds like it was information held on behalf of other companies. So names, addresses, basic information on accounts etc

Re: Equifax data breach affects millions in UK
 

Cheers.

You mean physical addresses? What other information might they have held on people who aren't subscribers to their services? Could VM be one of their customers and, if so, what sort of information might have been lost? Is there likely to be a need to faff around with VM email account passwords etc. for example?

Re: Equifax data breach affects millions in UK
 

Only if you use the same login details for equifax as you do elsewhere. If you don't already use a password manager like LastPass with random long passwords individual to each site you use now is the time to start.

It's things like your name, address, DOB, who you have accounts with and what you owe/are in credit etc they might have access to. Unless you've given credit card details directly to Equifax they won't be at risk.

Re: Equifax data breach affects millions in UK
 

To be clear I don't know, just speculating, but I doubt they have any passwords for accounts etc. It would be physical addresses for credit checks I would imagine. Also so far I haven't heard of Virgin Media being one of their clients.

Re: Equifax data breach affects millions in UK
 

Thanks. :tu: I don't have many online accounts and use different login passwords for all of them as I do with our email accounts. So it seems those who're actual customers of Equifax are potentially going to have worse problems, especially if they've not been careful about passwords etc. as you've mentioned.

---------- Post added at 17:04 ---------- Previous post was at 17:00 ----------

I'm forever being asked to sign up for online banking when I go into the bank and always tell them I'm not interested. Next time they do so I'm going to refer to this debacle when I say for the umpteenth time that I don't want any online accounts.

I appreciate that if my bank's systems are compromised then our data could be at risk but there's nothing I can do about that. What I can do something about is refusing to conduct my life online although I believe HMRC for one is intent on making that harder to do.

Re: Equifax data breach affects millions in UK
 

I believe they use Experian.

Re: Equifax data breach affects millions in UK
 

How long's it going to be before someone at Equifax tells us what the damage is and the risks are I wonder.

Re: Equifax data breach affects millions in UK
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41474329

This sort of thing is inevitable when we have companies holding so much data on so many people. The more of them there are, the bigger the risk, the larger the task of dealing with breaches and the more lives will be adversely affected by having their personal/financial information misused. :spin:

Re: Equifax data breach affects millions in UK
 

We like having convenient access to credit so need centralised databases holding financial information.

The actual reason for the breach was inexcusable. A total failure to follow basic information security guidelines.