Equifax breach might have been worse than anyone thought

A new revelation shows Equifax’s massive data breach, which occurred last year and affected about 145.5 million consumers, may have been worse than anyone thought.

But this isn’t the first time the credit agency revealed the breach was more damaging than initially announced. Back in October, Equifax revealed the data breach was bigger than they first thought, moving the number of victims up from 143 million to 145.5 million.

But now, confidential documents Equifax provided to the Senate Banking Committee showed additional information such as tax IDs and driver’s license details were also accessed during the hack.

And now, some interest groups are urging Congress to hold Equifax accountable and pass consumer protection bills.

U.S. PIRG, a federation of state public interest research groups, is urging Congress to pass pro-consumer privacy and data security bills introduced in the five months since the breach was first reported.

“Why did it take Equifax so long to disclose this additional stolen information?” asked Mike Litt, U.S. PIRG consumer campaign director. “And why hasn’t Equifax directly notified consumers about this yet?”

“In addition to raising more questions over Equifax’s many failures, these new revelations show the urgent need for action,” Litt said. “For starters, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should complete its investigation into the breach. In the meantime, Congress should pass legislation now.”

U.S. PIRG listed several bills introduced in Congress that it supports, and says would support consumers including S. 2289, the Data Breach Prevention and Compensation Act, S. 1816, the Freedom from Equifax Exploitation Act and S. 2362, the Control Your Personal Credit Information Act.