Brexit and Equifax Data Breach

Frank Sanacore

FINC-620-M02

Quiz #1 - Part #1

Equifax Data Breach

        Equifax Inc. is a consumer credit report agency whom collects and aggregates information on over 800 million individual consumers and more than 88 million businesses worldwide. It is the oldest of the three largest credit agencies (“The Big Three”) in the world. Aside from offering credit and demographic related data and services to business, Equifax sells credit monitoring and fraud-prevention services directly to consumers. Like all credit reporting agencies, the company is required by US law to provide consumers with one free credit report every year.

        An article recently posted on Yahoo Finance on Tuesday, October 10th, 2017, discussed that breach victims will surprisingly be paid back actual money as compensation by the credit bureau for their “sloppy” security practices. According to Chicago attorney Jay Edelson, “the lawsuits, if done right, will see Equifax pay more than $1 billion with much of that cash going directly to the over 143 million consumers who had personal data like their birthdates and Social Security numbers stolen”. Now this won’t happen over night, but it was predicted by several lawyers and financial analysts that in about two years the customers/victims would be in line to receive at least a small check.

        Management, clearly in a hole, needed to devise a plan to structure the company back to normalcy. In the end, agreeing to a lawsuit to pay back victims of the breach. Customers affected are now set to receive portions of what they had stolen through the remediation method of the lawsuit being accepted and paid by Equifax.

“Brexit”

        First off, “Brexit” is a word/term that has become used as a shortened way of saying the UK leaving the EU. Combining the words Britain and exit to get Brexit. The people of Britain voted for a British exit, or Brexit, from the EU in a historic referendum (a general vote by the electorate on a single political question that has been referred to them for a direct decision) on Thursday, June 23, 2016. The outcome prompted celebrations among many Eurosceptics (a person who is opposed to increasing the powers of the European Union) around the the continent and sent shock throughout the global economy. After the declaration of the referendum result, the pound fell to its lowest level since 1985 and David Cameron resigned as Prime Minister. In many surveys, it was concluded that most people from the UK voted to leave the EU because they feared immigration. Britain had great concern over the flux of people coming to the UK. All doing so under the EU’s freedom of movement rules.