Equifax Inc. must pay victims of its breach in 2017 at least $575. Mostly, this must be done in the form of free credit monitoring. This was the very breach, because of which the sensitive data of about 150 million people was hacked. To know the latest developments concerning the Equifax breach and discover the right processor to accept payments online, just follow the lines below.
Settlement for the Equifax Breach
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Equifax Inc. have reached a final decision, according to which the agency must provide compensation of at least $575 million and up to $700 million to cover the losses that the victims of the breach of the Equifax servers had in 2017.
Those whose info was breached can receive free credit monitoring services for up to 10 years. In addition, they can receive identity-restoration services for 7 years, and 6 Equifax credit reports for 7 years on a yearly basis.
Over 5 years, the company must spend at least $1 billion on improving its security measure. Also, Equifax must be fined $100 million by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as well as tens of millions of dollars by states and areas to settle their lawsuits.
Joe Simons, FTC Chairman, notes that the credit reporting agency didn’t manage to take the necessary measures to avoid the breach. Such failure resulted in the stolen personal information from Equifax on 147 million consumers. This included data concerning people’s driver’s licenses, Social Security numbers, and birth dates.
By the way, this breach is among the largest ones to threaten Americans’ private information. In fact, Equifax didn’t detect any hacker targeting its databases. What the hackers did is to “take advantage” of an existing security vulnerability on the company’s servers that the company had left in ignorance, for over 6 weeks.
According to the credit reporting company’s CEO, he hasn’t seen any evidence showing that the stolen data is on the “dark web.” What’s more, he hasn’t found any evidence pointing to an increased identity theft caused by the breach.
In today’s world of payments, it’s becoming more and more critical for companies to take steps to improve their security against fraud. To ensure your customers can easily avoid payment processing fraud, you need to take the time to find a secure merchant services provider in your field.
A reputable credit card processor and alternative online lender like eMerchantBroker.com can help you avoid cases like the Equifax breach. EMB, a BBB-accredited company that’s voted the nation’s top high risk processor, works in partnership with Verifi and Ethoca. As a result, EMB guarantees unmatched fraud prevention and chargeback reduction services in the industry.
What’s more, Card Payment Options has listed eMerchantBroker.com as an A company, and ValuePenguin has ranked EMB as the “Best All-Around High Risk Merchant Account Provider.”
No End to Data Breaches & Fraud
Data breaches are a source of huge problems both for consumers and companies worldwide. They can come at any time, to any financial institution you rely on. Fraudsters are constantly mastering their skills of targeting the loopholes in institutions’ servers and security protections. This way, they gain access to sensitive data and use it to their advantage.
Concerning the Equifax case, the FTC and CFPB both filed complaints against the company, with the FTC complaining Equifax was aware of a security loophole in one of its databases. This was the place where consumer inquiries about their personal credit information were being stored.
Have you heard about the recent case concerning the financial corporation Capital One? On July 30, 2019, the company announced a data breach concerning 100 million credit card applications, 140.000 Social Security numbers, and 80.000 bank account numbers.
To sum up, the Federal Trade Commission and Equifax have agreed that the latter must provide at least $575 million as compensation for personal data exposure in 2017. The $575 million agreement could reach $700 million. In fact, the settlement refers to one of the most dangerous data breaches in the country’s history. The hack caused the sensitive data of 143 million consumers to get exposed.