{"id":2475,"date":"2018-09-23T13:27:52","date_gmt":"2018-09-23T13:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/equifax-fined-by-ico-over-data-breach-that-hit-britons\/"},"modified":"2018-09-23T13:27:52","modified_gmt":"2018-09-23T13:27:52","slug":"equifax-fined-by-ico-over-data-breach-that-hit-britons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/equifax-fined-by-ico-over-data-breach-that-hit-britons\/","title":{"rendered":"Equifax fined by ICO over data breach that hit Britons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"Equifax\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/12881\/production\/_98250957_mediaitem97786910.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    The data breach affected 15 million UK customers<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Credit rating agency Equifax <a href=\"https:\/\/ico.org.uk\/media\/action-weve-taken\/mpns\/2259808\/equifax-ltd-mpn-20180919.pdf\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">is to be fined \u00a3500,000<\/a> by the Information Commissioner&#8217;s Office (ICO) after it failed to protect the personal data of 15 million Britons.<\/p>\n<p>A 2017 cyber-attack exposed information belonging to 146 million people around the world, mostly in the US.<\/p>\n<p>The compromised systems were also US-based.<\/p>\n<p>But the ICO ruled Equifax&#8217;s UK branch had &#8220;failed to take appropriate steps&#8221; to protect UK citizens&#8217; data.<\/p>\n<p>It added that &#8220;multiple failures&#8221; meant personal information had been kept longer than necessary and left vulnerable.<\/p>\n<p>Originally, Equifax reported that fewer than 400,000 Britons had had sensitive data exposed in the breach &#8211; but it later revealed that the number was nearly 700,000.<\/p>\n<p>A further 14.5 million British records exposed would not have put people at risk, the company added last October.<\/p>\n<p>The ICO, which joined forces with the Financial Conduct Authority to investigate the breach, found that it affected three distinct groups in the following ways:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">19,993 UK data subjects had names, dates of birth, telephone numbers and driving licence numbers exposed<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">637,430 UK data subjects had names, dates of birth and telephone numbers exposed<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Up to 15 million UK data subjects had names and dates of birth exposed<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Guard let down<\/h2>\n<p>Equifax had also been warned about a critical vulnerability in its systems by the US Department of Homeland Security in March 2017, the ICO revealed.<\/p>\n<p>And appropriate steps to fix the vulnerability were not taken, according to the ICO.<\/p>\n<p>Because the breach happened before the launch of the EU&#8217;s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May this year, the investigation took place under the UK&#8217;s Data Protection Act 1998 instead.<\/p>\n<p>And the fine of \u00a3500,000 is the highest possible under that law.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The loss of personal information, particularly where there is the potential for financial fraud, is not only upsetting to customers, it undermines consumer trust in digital commerce,&#8221; said  information commissioner Elizabeth Denham.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is compounded when the company is a global firm whose business relies on personal data.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>An Equifax spokesperson said the firm was &#8220;disappointed in the findings and the penalty&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As the ICO makes clear in its report, Equifax has successfully implemented a broad range of measures to prevent the recurrence of such criminal incidents and it acknowledges the strengthened procedures which are now in effect. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The criminal cyber-attack against our US parent company last year was a pivotal moment for our company. We apologise again to any consumers who were put at risk.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-england-essex-45574163\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Reuters Image caption The data breach affected 15 million UK customers Credit rating agency Equifax is to be fined \u00a3500,000 by the Information Commissioner&#8217;s Office (ICO) after it failed to protect the personal data of 15 million Britons. A 2017 cyber-attack exposed information belonging to 146 million people around the world, mostly in &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}