{"id":12915,"date":"2017-09-07T15:11:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T23:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/hackers-accessed-the-personal-data-of-143-million-people-equifax-says\/"},"modified":"2017-09-07T15:11:00","modified_gmt":"2017-09-07T23:11:00","slug":"hackers-accessed-the-personal-data-of-143-million-people-equifax-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/hackers-accessed-the-personal-data-of-143-million-people-equifax-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Hackers Accessed The Personal Data Of 143 Million People, Equifax Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Colin Dwyer<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
\n
Enlarge this image<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

\n Equifax announced Thursday that its systems were hacked in May, exposing 143 million consumers’ personal information.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mike Stewart\/AP<\/p>\n

<\/b>hide caption<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

toggle caption<\/b><\/b><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Mike Stewart\/AP<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Equifax, an international credit reporting agency, has announced that a cybersecurity breach exposed the personal information of 143 million U.S. consumers. In a statement released Thursday<\/a>, the Atlanta-based agency acknowledged that “criminals exploited a U.S. website application vulnerability to gain access to certain files.”<\/p>\n

Those files include data such as Social Security numbers, birthdates and addresses \u2014 and, Equifax adds, “in some instances, driver’s license numbers.”<\/p>\n

For a span of roughly two months \u2014 from mid-May through July 29, when Equifax says it uncovered the breach \u2014 hackers had access to this information, as well as the credit card numbers of about 209,000 consumers and “certain dispute documents with personal identifying information” of about 182,000.<\/p>\n

All told, the number of American consumers affected constitutes about 44 percent of the U.S. population<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Equifax did not explain why more than two months passed before it discovered the hack, which also affected an unspecified number of consumers from Canada and the U.K.<\/p>\n

However, the agency is careful to note, it “has found no evidence of unauthorized activity on Equifax’s core consumer or commercial credit reporting databases.”<\/p>\n