The US Department of Justice has sued four Chinese soldiers for hacking Equifax credit agency in 2017, Justice Minister William Barr announced at a press conference on Monday. During the hack, personal data from nearly 150 million Americans were captured.
Barr talks about one of the biggest data breaches ever. “This was a deliberate and profound violation of the private information of the American people,” said Barr. The four suspects are members of the People’s Liberation Army of China.
In 2017, hackers were able to gain access to the system of Equifax, a large American credit bureau. They used a leak in the company’s software that was not updated on time. The hackers were able to dig through the system for weeks and thereby steal trade secrets and personal data, says Barr.
According to the ministry, there is no indication that the leaked personal data was actually misused.
The hack at Equifax caused a lot of unrest in 2017. The company received a lot of criticism because the cyber burglary was kept under control for a long time. This led to Richard Smith, the CEO and chairman of the board of the American credit bureau Equifax, resigning.
In January 2020 wrote Bloomberg that Equifax will pay a total of 380.5 million dollars (nearly 342 million euros) to customers who have fallen victim to the data breach. People can claim up to $ 20,000 from a fund set up by the company.
– .
