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Businesses Security Technology

Before It Was Hacked, Equifax Had a Different Fear: Chinese Spying (wsj.com) 47

Two years before Equifax stunned the world with the announcement it had been hacked, the credit-reporting company believed it was the victim of another theft, only this time at the hands of Chinese spies, WSJ reported Wednesday. From the report: In the previously undisclosed incident, security officials feared that former employees had removed thousands of pages of proprietary information before leaving and heading to jobs in China. Materials included code for planned new products, human-resources files and manuals. Equifax went to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency. Investigators from the company and the FBI came to view events at Equifax as potentially a huge theft of data -- not of consumers' personal data, as happened with the subsequent 2017 hacking of Equifax's files, but of confidential business information. Equifax security officials briefed the then-chief executive, Richard Smith, at a fall 2015 meeting, spreading high stacks of paper across the length of the boardroom table. The voluminous printouts represented what they feared was stolen. Adding to suspicions, the Chinese government had recently asked eight companies to help it build a national credit-reporting system. At one point, Equifax grew so worried it began building a way to monitor the computer activity of all of its ethnic-Chinese employees, according to people familiar with the investigation. The resource-heavy project, which raised legal concerns internally, was short-lived.
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Before It Was Hacked, Equifax Had a Different Fear: Chinese Spying

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  • by hackingbear ( 988354 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @02:41PM (#57300172)

    ... Samuel Slater [wikipedia.org] of the 1700's [pri.org]

  • "Equifax security officials briefed the then-chief executive, Richard Smith, at a fall 2015 meeting" - wait, what? Equifax has security officials?
    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      "Equifax security officials briefed the then-chief executive, Richard Smith, at a fall 2015 meeting" - wait, what? Equifax has security officials?

      Yes, for security of their "proprietary" information. Not of the stuff in their primary database (i.e., your information). Their marketing plans, their payrolls, etc. That's what they were protecting.

      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Protecting, oh no, they were engaged in racist activities selectively targeting any employee Asian looking (what is ethnic Chinese meant to mean) and spying on them. It is a corporation, anyone could have sold it and typically look at the top not the bottom, in fact look right at the person who thought it was a good idea to target Asian looking employees in a racist fashion.

        How much would they have paid, millions, well they only pay that to top because they get lock in (extortion value, high level source a

  • by The Original CDR ( 5453236 ) on Wednesday September 12, 2018 @02:50PM (#57300246)
    The background file for my national security clearance got stolen by the Chinese a few years ago That contained a lot more information than the credit reports that Uncle Sam requested from all three bureaus.
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Mine too. The SF86 thing seems to have been sanitized to the point where it is not compared to these other breaches. My clearance form had my info, wife and children, relatives, etc. Much worse in my opinion.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    The CIA used Equifax to train the Chinese wrong on purpose! Now we will be able to breach their data whenever necessary!

  • I can remember when this was a technology site, instead of a conduit for neocon waffle.
  • Sounds like China stole the technology for their own "social" credit rating, where a bad twitter can bar you from employment and your children from getting into a school.
  • Blood is thicker than politics.

    Your ethnic origin is part of your personal identity, at least for 95% of humanity.

    The USA has fought two proxy wars against Chinese and killed over a million of them.

    If you were Chinese, whose side would you take -- your own, or the global shopping mall the USA?

  • They're already the undisputed masters of operating a totalitarian surveillance and control system, these days.

  • They were horrified that the Chinese would steal the information because they wanted to sell the information for top dollar.

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