Government Pays Equifax $7.5 Million for Security Services After Massive Hack

equifax irs fraud
A monitor displays Equifax Inc. signage on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., on Friday, Sept. 15, 2017. Rediscovering their love for U.S. stock funds, investors added the most money since June during the past week, as the Trump administration plotted strategy for pushing a tax overhaul and the S&P 500 rose to a record. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

It’s your tax dollars at work – Equifax edition.

The consumer credit reporting agenda publicly disclosed last month that they had suffered a massive hack months prior, occurring from May to July. Over 145 million U.S. customers were affected, with hackers having access to their credit information, Social Security numbers, and other vital information.

That’s an insane number of victims.

But that was wave one of bad news. Immediately after being made public in early September, the stock crashed nearly 20% in a single day. To make matters worse, it was discovered that three high-profile executives had sold stock after the hack was occurring, but before the information was made public. There were also 2,500 put contracts purchased on Equifax stock (which are derivatives that increase in value is a stock loses value) in late August, which is more contracts traded on the stock in a single order than are usually outstanding every month. In other words, the order was placed by someone who knew something the public did not, and presumably was another insider at Equifax.

So we have an organization that held extremely sensitive information on tens of millions of people, but skimped out on security despite the duty it owed to customers. And to top it off, Equifax managers were most likely engaged in insider trading.

And what’s the federal government’s response to this disgusting breach of trust and avarice? To give them money to help them prevent fraud.

Seriously.

According to The Blaze, “The IRS will pay the same company that exposed nearly half of consumers’ personal information $7.25 million to help them prevent fraud. The no-bid contract was awarded to Equifax’s data services according to POLITICO and will ‘verify taxpayer identity’ and ‘assist in ongoing identity verification and validations.'”

If this sounds like insanity, that’s because it is. Who in their right mind would hand over this contract to a clearly reckless company?

The government, that’s who.

I’ll conclude by reminding everyone that just days after the hack, researchers at Hold Security (a Milwaukee-based cyber-security firm) found that through basic guesswork, they were able to uncover personal employee information housed on Equifax’s South American site, including names, emails, and their equivalent of Social Security numbers.

How? Because the database’s username and password were both “admin.”

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

What do you think? Should Equifax receive your tax dollars after this? Tell us your thoughts below, and share this story over Facebook!

By Matt

Matt is the co-founder of Unbiased America and a freelance writer specializing in economics and politics. He’s been published... More about Matt

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