How the Equifax breach went from bad to worse – and how to avoid the same mistakes

September 27, 2017 by CO-OP Financial Services

With as many as 143 million consumers impacted – representing roughly 40 percent of the U.S. population – the fallout from the recent Equifax breach promises to be nothing short of staggering.

While a compromise of this magnitude is a somewhat rare occurrence, in fact smaller cyberbreaches occur all the time.

According to PYMNTS.com, one of the world’s top cybersecurity consulting firms, Deloitte, just announced a recent breach that compromised “sensitive corporate data,” including emails and company plans of some of the world’s “biggest banks, multinational companies, media enterprises, pharmaceutical firms and government agencies.”

Millions of Records Compromised Each Year

USA Today reports that more than 825 million personal records were exposed in data breaches from 2006 to 2016, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center. A 2017 Javelin Strategy & Research study reveals that a record 15.4 million U.S. consumers became identify fraud victims in 2016 alone – with losses totaling $16 billion for the year.