#Equifax data breach analysis free

The first quarter results also include 'a pre-tax legal accrual of $690 million for losses associated with certain legal proceedings and investigations related to the 2017 cybersecurity incident,' the company says.

#Equifax data breach analysis free

Last year, breach victims were also offered a further 12 months of free service if they migrated to Experian's IDnotify product (see: Congratulations: You Get 'Free' Identity Theft Monitoring ). It also lists $1.5 million for product liability, referring to Equifax offering breach victims 12 months of prepaid access to the TrustedID identity theft monitoring service from rival credit bureau Experian.

The balance sheet also lists $12.5 million in quarterly legal and investigative fees, referring to costs associated with 'legal, government and regulatory investigations.' The company's 2019 first quarter balance sheet lists $82.8 million in technology and data security costs arising from the data breach, including 'incremental costs to transform our technology infrastructure and improve application, network, data security, and the costs of development and launch of Lock and Alert.' The latter is an Equifax product that allows individuals to lock and unlock their credit report with Equifax. Meanwhile, costs arising from the data breach continue to mount. 'We have received the maximum reimbursement under the insurance policy of $125 million, all of which was received prior to 2019,' it says. Data Breach Costs MountĮquifax had a $125 million cybersecurity insurance policy at the time it was breached, with a $7.5 million deductible. Had any one of those factors been better handled, GAO said, the breach may not have occurred (see: Postmortem: Multiple Failures Behind the Equifax Breach). Government Accountability Office report released last September into the 76-day breach, via which attackers slowly exfiltrated data from 51 databases, identified five key factors that contributed to the breach: identification, detection, segmentation and data governance, as well as a failure to rate-limit database requests. It also led to the departure of the company's CEO, as well as its top two information security personnel.Ī House report into the breach released last December concluded that the breach 'was entirely preventable,' while a Senate report from last month concluded that the breach response was 'inadequate and hampered by Equifax's neglect of cybersecurity'Ī U.S. and Canada, and dozens of lawsuits and formal investigations by state attorneys general. The breach led to Congressional probes, probes by privacy authorities in the U.K. The breach also exposed information for 15 million U.K. Breached Impacted Half of All AmericansĮquifax's data breach resulted in the exposure of the personal data of 148 million individuals in the U.S., or 56 percent of all American adults - representing nearly half of the total U.S. Sales barely missed analysts' average expectations of $852.9 million - less then a 1 percent difference - while the $1.20 actual earnings per share fell below analysts' $1.23 expectation, according to data from Reuters. Equifax's quarterly revenue was $846.1 million, down 2 percent compared to the first quarter of 2018 although up 1 percent on a local currency basis. On Friday, Atlanta-based Equifax announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2019, ending March 31, reporting a loss of $555.9 million, compared to net income of $90.9 million in the first quarter of 2018. Two years after the data breach, which began on May 13, 2017, and the company discovered and began remediating on July 29, 2017, resulting legal costs and investigations haven't stopped taking a big bite out of the company's bottom line. See Also: Live Webinar | Breaking Down Security Challenges so Your Day Doesn’t Start at 3pm Credit reporting giant Equifax has spent nearly $1.4 billion on cleanup costs as well as overhauling its information security program following its massive 2017 data breach.