What You Should Know About the Equifax Data Breach Settlement
Summary: Equifax reportedly agreed to pay at least $650 million to settle lawsuits over a 2017 breach that exposed personal and financial data on roughly 148 million Americans, with up to $425 million earmarked for consumers who can show financial harm and up to 10 years of free credit monitoring. The proposed settlement assumes only about seven million people will sign up for monitoring, and the $425 million pot works out to about $2.87 per victim if all 148 million were counted.
What's compelling: The settlement's consumer fund assumes roughly seven million claimants out of 148 million exposed people, so the per-victim figure of about $2.87 reflects a pool sized for a fraction of those affected. Krebs notes the credit bureaus make about $1 each time they sell a credit file to a potential creditor, a reminder that the exposed data has ongoing commercial value.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
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