Equifax Inc

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Equifax is a consumer credit reporting agency. Equifax collects and aggregates information on over 800m individual consumers and more than 88m businesses worldwide. Founded in 1899 and based in Atlanta, Georgia, it is one of the 3 largest credit agencies along with Experian and TransUnion (known as the “Big Three”). Equifax has US$3.1bn in annual revenue and 9,000+ employees in 14 countries.

Equifax Public Sector Gateway can be used in many instances, including but not limited to: Welfare benefits, Tax credits, Local services, Asset and debt recovery, Evidence . "Using Equifax Public Sector Gateway has already created a 10% uplift in the number of people we can trace for collections. It’s an essential part of the jigsaw in helping us to over-achieve on our results." -- Clive Jones, Revenues and Commercial Services Manager, Luton Council

More info on the beginning of credit ref. agencies:

  • TransUnion was established in 1968 as the holding company for Union Tank Car Company (railway tankers), but diversified into the area of business intelligence when it took over the Credit Bureau of Cook County. Today it has the greatest representation when measured by number of countries covered, especially after its purchase of CRB Africa.
  • CreditInfo is a much more recent entrant, an Icelandic company established in 1997 that now has operations in many smaller countries, especially in eastern Europe.

Timelines

  • Dec.2012: CSC Credit Services Inc, the credit services arm of Computer Sciences Corporation, was acquired. CSC Credit Services Inc owned credit files in 15 midwestern and central USA states, representing ~20% of the population. CSC had been involved in a dispute over its contract to provide electronic patient records for the UK's National Health Service.[1] csc.comArchive-org-sm.svg, csc.comdxc.technology
ToDo: Links to go through: WP, link, link, link, History, link, link, Equifax.arch See also Talk:Equifax Inc

Articles

  • Equifax breach finally gets its post-mortem A report was finally issued in Dec.2018 when Congress delivered its formal account of the 2017 breach at Equifax, saying 145m Americans' personal data was leaked to hackers. Investigators condemned the credit agency's mega-breach as "entirely preventable". Sudhakar Reddy Bonthu, one of the executives who profited off the incident, was given 8 months' home confinement and fined $50,000, as well as forced to turn over $75,000 in gains he made when, upon learning of the breach, he purchased options on Equifax stock that allowed him to turn a quick profit when the breach was revealed to the public and the share price plummeted. Shaun Nichols, The Register.
  • May.08.2018: Equifax reveals full horror of that monstrous cyber-heist of its servers. 146 million people, 99 million addresses, 209,000 payment cards, 38,000 drivers' licenses and 3,200 passports. The cyber-break-in occurred because Equifax ran an unpatched and therefore insecure version of Apache Struts, something it blamed on a single employee. Richard Chirgwin, The Register.

References

  1. ^ CSC Sells Credit-Services Unit to Equifax for $1 Billion. Melodie Warner, Andrew R Johnson, The Wall Street Journal, Dec.03.2012.