If China did hack Equifax in 2017, government employees likely have a higher risk of being targeted, one expert says.
More than two years after hackers swiped the personal information of nearly 150 million Americans from Equifax computers, federal prosecutors this week charged four members of China’s army with carrying out the 2017 cyberattack on the credit bureau.
But cybersecurity experts say consumers should be less worried about random charges on their credit-card bill — and more worried, as citizens, about China’s ability to gather intelligence on America’s strengths and weaknesses on a vast scale. The names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and driver’s license numbers were stolen. Credit-card numbers for 209,000 consumers were also stolen.
Tom Kellerman, head of cybersecurity strategy at VMWare Carbon Black, a cybersecurity provider, said people working in the technology should also stay vigilant. Indeed, any sector that could be a gateway to a massive trove of intelligence on Americans’ political views or people of public importance are especially vulnerable, he added. Workers for major corporations that hold important government contracts and have their own valuable trade secrets should also be vigilant.
Whether you’re a government employee or work in the private sector, Eva Velasquez, president and CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center, urged people to monitor their credit reports. “We should be taking the same reaction steps regardless of who the perpetrator is,” she said. “I want people to focus more on the data compromise and less on who did the compromising.”
China has denied the allegations. China’s foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said, We firmly oppose and combat cyberattacks of any kind. China is a staunch defender of cybersecurity,” the Associated Press reported, “The Chinese government, military and relevant personnel never engage in cyber theft of trade secrets.”
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