How Did Equifax Lose 147 Million Americans' Data?

In 2017, hackers took the personal data of about 147 million Americans from Equifax. The fix for the hole they used had been public for two months. Then the CEO told Congress it came down to one employee who didn't forward an email. Told through the U.S. House Oversight Committee's own report: an email to 430 people, a scan of the wrong folder, a security certificate that expired 19 months earlier — and the one person who got fired. Chapters 0:00 147 million 0:11 You never signed up 0:41 The company 1:06 Moment 1: the email 1:30 Moment 2: the scan 1:52 Moment 3: the 1970s portal 2:05 Moment 4: the keys 2:50 Moment 5: the blind spot 3:18 Moment 6: the lights come on 3:30 The announcement 4:19 One employee 5:04 What it cost Sources • U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, "The Equifax Data Breach" (Dec 2018) • GAO-18-559 (Aug 2018) · FTC press release (July 22, 2019) • U.S. Department of Justice: insider trading sentencing (2019); indictment announcement (Feb 10, 2020) • TechCrunch (Oct 3, 2017) · Gizmodo (Sept 20, 2017) Indictments are allegations; the defendants have not been tried in a U.S. court. Credits Report pages: U.S. House of Representatives (public domain). Photos: Wikimedia Commons (authors and licenses in credits). Some scenes are AI-generated illustrations. Stock: Pixabay · Music: "Pulsar" by The Grey Room / Density & Time ▶ Previously: Knight Capital: The 45 Minutes That Cost $460 Million →    • Knight Capital: The 45 Minutes That Cost $...   Signal Foundry: stories behind the things that changed business and technology. #Equifax #DataBreach #CyberSecurity