Equifax Security Latest News: Breached Data of 143 Million People Will Be Dumped if Hackers Don't Get Paid $2M in Bitcoin
Two people have claimed they are the hackers behind the massive Equifax data breach and are threatening to dump the private information of 143 million victims if the company does not pay them more than $2 million in Bitcoin.
Last week, it was revealed that consumer credit reporting agency Equifax had become one of the latest victims of a huge data breach. Due to the company's nature, they had access to the sensitive information of millions of Americans including their social security numbers, credit card numbers, birth dates, and full names – all of which could be used for identity theft and all sorts of fraudulent activities.
Several days after the attack was confirmed, two people from an onion site claimed responsibility for the attacks and stated that they demand to be paid with 600 BTC, reports said. As of this writing, 1 BTC converts to around $4,200, which brings the total amount of the ransom to more than $2.5 million.
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The hackers introduced themselves through an onion website, according to Mashable, and claimed that if Equifax failed to pay until Friday, Sept. 15, they were going to release all of the data they have except for the credit card numbers of the victims.
They explained they do not want to harm the millions of victims of the data breach but only wanted to teach Equifax a "necessary lesson."
In the original post of the hackers, they said: "We are two people trying to solve our lives and those of our families. We did not expect to get as much information as we did, nor do we want to affect any citizen. But we need to monetize the information as soon as possible."
Meanwhile, the same Mashable report also questioned the legitimacy of the hackers' claims and cited that they have used an email address linked to known 4chan pranksters.
However, the hackers challenged Equifax to "request a specific part or a specific data from an email that corresponds to Equifax" to prove that they legitimately hold records from the company's database.
The hackers also explained the 600 BTC ransom is the right amount since it had been reported that three executives of Equifax sold all their company shares worth an accumulated amount of over $1.8 million before informing the public about the data breach.
