After it was revealed that the Equifax hack was even bigger yet again, the US government said something that really made me say/think something in the trend of "WHAT the actual FUCK?!"

"This data is in the hands of cyber criminals anyways".

You run the biggest mass surveillance program in the world, sucking up more than a million terabytes every hour, then at least could you PRETEND to care/take interest when the personal data of about all your citizens appears on the Internet?!

Fucking hell.

Ah, I see you studies music in college! Why don't you work in information security!

For the record, Equifax didn't *lose* everybody's personal data. They just made unintentional backups of it, your Honor.

Every week in my intro to information security class we are asked about what security stuff has gone down in the past week. Equifax is making it incredibly easy to not have to do much research.

Screw all the people who think standard email is "secure". It is not suitible for sending passwords and SSN numbers.

How can something Equifax or Marriott hacks have happened and people are still ok sending out information like this in plain text?!

I know their hacks weren't email released but still.....should be a good time to up some security standards. Right?

There is nothing easier than running an insurance company in the US of A. When a big request comes in from a client in distress that got into a terrible accident that is definitely covered by their (very expensive) plan, you just go to the data bank like Equifax and see if they're still rich enough to win a lawsuit against you should you refuse to pay.

For those of you who don't know what a data bank is: data banks are companies that buy/scrape/suck in every last bit of data they can about every person in the country, and then resell it through their fancy UI with all the convenient features and metrics.

So, Umbrella Insurance Co. goes to Equifax and asks whether Joe Schmoe's accident is severe and life-ruining enough that they won't be able to sue us. Exuifax says: let's see... Joe's Revolut©™ account has the grand total of $80.12, with $7,382.25 recently spent on medical bills. Joe's WhatsApp©™ (a Meta©™ company) classifies their recent messages as "desperate". Joe's iPhone©™ Screen Time©™ is increased, and Joe is doomscrolling a lot, especially on The Washington Post©™ (a Jeff Bezos company). All signs show that if you don't pay them, they won't be able to out-sue you. That would be $0.12, thanks!

As a person who is no one in particular that may or may not have been a US of A's supreme court judge once said, "sometimes it's not about justice, but about making the sucker spend all their money".

Well the hacker was hacked today... God damn you equifax!! I will get my revenge.

[Equifax Recruiter] - Hi, we have an exciting opportunity for you here at Equifax! Innovative... blah blah... J2EE... blah blah... latest technologies... blah blah... greenfield... blah... CORBA... (ok, there wasn't any CORBA)
[Me] - Oh Equifax... how did you get my details?
[ER] - ...

Equifax had "admin" as password in Argentina.
Well played (yourself) man!

Reading Geekonomics (silly title for the book) and seriously considering that maybe we should all be licensed/certified since so much software is broken, looking at you Equifax.

Do you have an issue with Equifax hiring a Chief Security Officer having a music degree or do you think that it has nothing to do with her competency and it shouldn't be brought up as an issue after this hack.. Go!!