The Equifax data breach is not like other data breaches. According to Forbes: "A different kind of data was stolen -- data that very few organizations have and that can be used to cause a lot more damage".
According to the New York Times, the Equifax breach revealed names, Social Security numbers, birthdates and addresses of at least 145.5 million people, credit card numbers for more than 200,000 people and a smaller number of driver’s license numbers. As concerning as those numbers are, it is the type of data stolen rather than in the scope of the breach that merits vigilance.
The Equifax data has the potential to bring valuable context to the massive amount of data that has been stolen in recent years. For instance, using the Equifax data, criminals can determine that Joe ____ has legitimate accounts with Bank of America, Wells Fargo and SunTrust Bank. When combined with the username and password data from, for example, the Yahoo breach, cybercriminals will have a powerful data set that allows them to maximize account takeover and conversion to fraud for known accounts that may contain significant amounts of money".
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