PA Media reports that Equifax UK was fined over a breach at the firm’s U.S. owner, Equifax, Inc.
The UK’s financial watchdog has fined Equifax £11 million for its role in one of the largest cyber attacks, which affected more than 13 million British consumers in 2017.
The credit rating giant failed to keep its customers safe during an “entirely preventable” cybersecurity breach, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said.
The hack happened after Equifax’s UK arm outsourced customer data to its owner based in the US, Equifax Inc.
Read more at Yahoo!
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which imposed the monetary penalty, issued a statement that notes that the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office investigated the data breach and imposed a £500,000 fine on Equifax Ltd in 2018. The FCA also notes that the data Equifax U.K. had outsourced to its U.S. parent was for the Equifax Identity Verifier and Global Consumer Solutions. The Equifax Identity Verifier product is one of the B2B services Equifax Ltd provides to business customers, which helps businesses to verify and authenticate their customers’ identities. Global Consumer Solutions is a product that gives retail consumers access to their credit reports and it also provides a web monitoring service.
