Equifax failed to encrypt the databases that store some of the most sensitive details of people’s lives. Columnist Davidlaz explains how most large U.S. companies similarly do not encrypt the data they take from customers:
the 2017 hack of credit bureau Equifax, resulting in the confidential personal information of about 145 million consumers being stolen.Equifax basically left all our data out on the lawn for anyone to walk off with -- the upshot of failing to encrypt the databases that store some of the most sensitive details of our lives.
“This was a deliberate and sweeping intrusion into the private information of the American people,” he“Unfortunately,” Barr added, “the Equifax hack fits a disturbing and unacceptable pattern of state-sponsored computer intrusions and thefts by China and its citizens that have targeted personally identifiable information, trade secrets and other confidential information.”
To be sure, the breach likely wouldn’t have happened if Equifax had kept its guard up. But the fact that its crown jewels -- our data -- were completely up for grabs once the hackers broke through is no less reckless. So the bad guys were using encryption to cover their tracks. But Equifax had no qualms about leaving all of that information unencrypted, readily accessible to any intruder.
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