US: Equifax possibly hit by another hacking

By Barry Eitel

SAN FRANCISCO (AA) - Equifax announced Thursday it has taken offline one of its webpages that assist customers, amid concerns the credit monitoring company had been hacked again.

The company announced last month it had been hacked earlier in the year and 145.5 million Americans were impacted. The company said hackers were able to gain access to names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and credit card numbers.

The company quickly set up webpages aimed to help affected consumers monitor their credit scores, but it appears at least one of those sites may have been compromised by hackers.

Late Wednesday, cybersecurity analyst Randy Abrams noted an Equifax webpage he was using directed him to another website that sent him a bogus pop-up advertisement that lured him to download an update to Adobe Flash. Abrams believed hackers had breached the webpage and are trying to steal the personal data of consumers trying to monitor their credit.

“We are aware of the situation identified on the equifax.com website in the credit report assistance link,” Equifax spokesman Wyatt Jefferies said in a statement. “Our IT and security teams are looking into this matter, and out of an abundance of caution have temporarily taken this page offline.”

Equifax’s stock dipped amid the news of a possible second hack, falling 1.67 percent to $108.65 in afternoon trading.

Also Thursday, Rep. Patrick McHenry introduced new legislation that would reduce the amount of sensitive information credit monitoring companies collect from Americans. The bill would require Equifax, Experian and TransUnion to phase out Social Security numbers by 2020 so future hackers would not be able to access such sensitive data.

“The Equifax data breach has harmed my constituents in western North Carolina and Americans across the country," McHenry said. "It exposed a major shortcoming in our nation’s cybersecurity laws and Congress must act. The bill I’ve introduced today takes an important first step in providing meaningful reforms to help Americans who have been impacted by this breach. It is focused on prevention, protection, and prohibition.”