While it's possible the company was hit by a zero-day attack, what's more likely is that Equifax's long list of mistakes shows just how technically challenged, if not entirely inept, it has been. Private records of 147.9 million Americans along with 15.2.
#Equifax breach code#
However, since vulnerability detection and exploitation has become a professional business, it is and always will be likely that attacks will occur even before we fully disclose the attack vectors, by reverse engineering the code that fixes the vulnerability in question or by scanning for yet unknown vulnerabilities. The Equifax data breach occurred between May and July 2017 at the American credit bureau Equifax.
#Equifax breach Patch#
Even if exploit code is known to us, we try to hold back this information for several weeks to give Struts Framework users as much time as possible to patch their software products before exploits will pop up in the wild. Consumer credit reporting agency Equifax announced late Thursday hackers had breached some of its website application software, potentially affecting the sensitive personal information of approximately 143 million consumers.
#Equifax breach how to#
We then publicly announce the problem description and how to fix it. In alignment with the Apache security policies, once we get notified of a possible security issue, we privately work with the reporting entity to reproduce and fix the problem and roll out a new release hardened against the found vulnerability. Overview: Attorney General Chris Carr announced on July 22, 2019, that a coalition of 50 attorneys general, including 48 states. The Struts developers also make it clear that: The development team puts enormous efforts in securing and hardening the software we produce, and fixing problems whenever they come to our attention. It's far more likely that - if the problem was indeed with Struts - it was with a separate but equally serious security problem in Struts, first patched in March. Mike Stewart/AP The breach of the credit monitoring firm Equifax, which exposed extensive personal data for 143 million people, is the. On Friday, it said it waited until it 'observed additional suspicious activity' a day later to take the affected web application offline. To quote the renowned security expert SwiftOnSecurity: "Pretty much 99.99 percent of computer security incidents are oversights of solved problems." The corporate headquarters of Equifax Inc. Equifax has said it discovered the data breach on July 29. It's possible that the hackers found the hole on their own, but zero-day exploits aren't that common. Equifax admitted hackers had broken in between mid-May through July, long before the most recent Struts flaw was revealed. But, while some jumped on this as the security hole immediately, there was one little problem with that theory. How to delete yourself from search results and hide your identity onlineĪ new and significant Struts security problem was uncovered on September 5. The 5 best browsers for privacy: Secure web browsing How to find out if you are involved in a data breach - and what to do next The best VPN services: How do the top 5 compare? Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton immediately commenced an investigation to determine the facts and circumstances surrounding this massive breach. Information he provided to Apache, which published it along with a fix on March 6, showed how the flaw could be used to steal data from any company using the software.How to find and remove spyware from your phone Nike Zheng, a Chinese cybersecurity researcher from a bustling industrial center near Shanghai, probably knew little about Equifax or the value of the data pulsing through its servers when he exposed a flaw in popular backend software for web applications called Apache Struts.
In short, the viability of Equifax and the security of its data were one and the same.
They weren't being disparaging, just darkly honest: Founded in the 19th century as a retail credit company, Equifax had over the years morphed into one of the largest repositories of Americans' most sensitive financial data, which the company sliced and diced and sold to banks and hedge funds. In the corridors and break rooms of Equifax Inc.'s giant Atlanta headquarters, employees used to joke that their enormously successful credit reporting company was just one hack away from bankruptcy.
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