Equifax , the credit reporting agency which recentlylost say course credit informationon up to 143 million people to hackers , experienced another security falling out months before it has already divulge — and this news break on the same day it was reported senior Equifax executives are being investigated for selling off stock after the attack .
PerBloomberg , three mass familiar with the situation have say intruders successfully launched a “ major break ” in March . That is months before the antecedently known breach , whichEquifax saysbegan in May and it acquire of in late July . At least one of the three people who speak to the news agency say the same hackers were behind both breach , though the company says they were unrelated incidents .
Equifax engage protection firm Mandiant after the March break , which conduct a multi - calendar month probe , “ only to have to bring the investigator back when it observe suspicious activity again on July 29 , ” Bloomberg account .
“ The retention of Mandiant in March was unrelated to the July 29 cybersecurity incident , ” an Equifax spokesperson told Gizmodo in a statement . “ Equifax complied fully with all consumer notification requirements touch on to the March incident . The two events are not related . ”
The later breach exploit a exposure in open - source server theoretical account software Apache Struts which Equifaxfailed to fixfor months after a plot of land was available .
Meanwhile , investment news website ThinkAdvisorwrote people conversant with the issue say the US Department of Justice has launched an probe into whether three top Equifax executives discontinue the police by selling off over a million dollar sign in stock after the company learned of the hack .
Investigators are count into whether Equifax chief fiscal military officer John Gamble , chairperson of U.S. information solutions Joseph Loughran and chairwoman of workforce solutions Rodolfo Ploder knew of the breach when they sold off over $ 1.8 million in stock . The sales were not pre - scheduled , and anyone in the grummet on the ward-heeler would have known Equifax inventory was about to take a serious hit — though the company says the managers were not informed of the break prior to the sales .
Equifax recently allege two senior executives , Chief Information Officer David Webb and Chief Security Officer Susan Mauldin , were already “ retiring . ”
According to ThinkAdvisor , Atlanta public prosecutor , the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission are all involved in the multiple federal probes into the hacks and the suspicious sales . The Federal Trade Commission has publiclyconfirmed its own question , saying it normally does not comment on ongoing investigations but wanted to make it get it on “ in light of the intense public sake and the potential impact of this topic . ”
Update 2025-01-21 : Equifax has forwarded an extra statement to Gizmodo :
In response to the Bloomberg history attempting to connect two separate Cybersecurity effect and suggesting the earlier event live on unreported , Equifax offers the undermentioned reply .
to begin with this year , during the 2016 taxation season , Equifax get a security incident ask a payroll - relate service . The incident was reported to customers , affected individuals and regulators . This incident was also cover in the media .
The March result report by Bloomberg is not related to the criminal hacking that was key out on July 29 . Mandiant has investigated both events and find out no grounds that these two freestanding events or the attackers were relate . The criminal hacking that was discovered on July 29 did not affect the customer databases hosted by the Equifax business enterprise social unit that was the subject of the March event .
[ Bloomberg , ThinkAdvisor ]
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