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Are using the u. S. Financial system. And, you know, were talking about something that, you know, is matters on a number of levels of american life. Whether youre applying for a credit card or whether youre applying for a mortgage, a checking account. All of these things factor into this data breach in one way or another. 143 million credit files put at risk here. What does that mean to consumers . What can they do . Should they be doing at this point . Security experts are generally recommending a couple of steps. The biggest step you could take is to freeze your credit. This essentially makes it so anyone who is trying to start an account fraudulently in your name wont be able to have, you know, the bank pull your credit in order to start the account. You know, that actually takes a few steps. You have to call each of the three Credit Reporting agencies and say, hey, i want my credit frozen. In some cases you may have to pay a small fee. Equifax has waived that fee temporarily. But for the other two reporting agencies, you will have to pay between 5 to 10 depending on where you live. That then gets you the ability to put essentially a lock on your credit and no one except for the federal government if its conducting an investigation of you or certain other businesses if they already have a business relationship with you will be able to look at your Credit Report. Now, the second thing you can do is something thats slightly less than that. Its to establish a 90day credit fraud alert on your account. And this basically makes it so any bank that receives a request to start an account on your behalf would have to call you to make sure that youre actually the one making the request. Were talking with brian fung of the Washington Post about the equifax breach. We split our phone lines up regionally. Mountain and pacific time zones b 2027488001. Brian fung, from your reporting on this it looks like the breach started in late may. It was discovered by equifax in late july. Why are we just finding out about it . Its something equifax has not answered fully. Weve gotten in some cases you might expect a company that has been breached to conduct some internal investigations before, you know, announcing to the public that, you know, theyve been hacked. But, you know, in general, equifaxs record in dealing with the public here in this incident has not been very, you know, forthcoming or transparent. Heres what Richard Smith had to say. Hes the ceo of equifax and he has an oped in todays usa today on this topic when it comes to the lag here between the discovery and the disclosure. Shortly after discovering the intrusion, we engaged a Security Firm to conduct an investigation at the time. We thought the intrusion was limited. The team working with equifax security personnel devoted thousands of hours during the following weeks to investigate. Lets talk about congressional reaction to equifax. Theres been quite a bit. Theres been calls for congressional hearings. What can equifax expect in the wake of this . I think youre going to see a lot of lawmakers pushing for a greater regulation of this industry particularly when it comes to consumer data thats not that goes beyond the typical Credit Reporting roles of these agencies. You know, youve this is an issue that cuts across party lines. You know, democrats and republicans are outraged here. You had, you know, senior lawmakers like ron widen and orrin hatch both writing letters to equifax expressing their displeasure and surprise at the data breach. This is Something Congress appears relatively unified on. Equifax will have to confront that in the days to come. Mark warner democrat of virginia is a former head of a Technology Company before he came to congress. Heres what he had to say in a statement earlier this week. The scope of this breach raises serious questions about whether congress should not only create a uniform data breach notification standard, but also whether Congress Needs to rethink Data Protection policies so that enterprises such as equifax have fewer incentives to collect large centralized sets of highly Sensitive Data like Social Security numbers and credit card information on millions of americans. It is no exaggeration to suggest that a breach such as this represents a real threat to the Economic Security of americans. What are other companies doing as theyre looking at the size of this breach . Are they rethinking the way theyre going to be storing data . Well, i hope so. Unfortunately what weve seen in the past is this idea about a Common National data breach notification law has been proposed numerous times and hasnt really made it very far. Right now, you know, the United States basically has a patchwork of Data Breach Notification Laws depending on which state youre living in. And californias is generally considered to be the strongest. But, you know, other states also have them. And the question is if Congress Moves forward with a National Data breach notification legislation pushing with will that weaken the protections afforded to some consumers in some states even as they increase and apply protections across the board for all states . Phone lines are open if you want to talk to Brian Fung Technology reporter with the post. Should note, phone lines again split up by time zone. In the eastern or central, 20 202748 2027488000. Want to hear from you whether youve had your information put at risk. Want to hear those stories over the next 24 25 minu5 minutes. Jim is first in fairfield, connecticut. Good morning. Caller good morning, cspan and your guest. I have a few a comment and a question. The its a disturbing occurrence when a breach occurs. I havent heard anything in the news reports about who orchestrated the breach, where is the data presently . Where did it go . What sort of penalties can equifax face . And ive kind of tied this to the wells fargo fiasco in that there is really no penalties. My first reaction was shut this business down. They cant be trusted with our personal data. And any company that subscribes to equifax should stop doing business with them immediately so that they are punished financially. So hopefully you can answer the question all good questions, jim. Thanks for bringing them up. Youre looking at something that Security Experts say is very difficult to you know, Security Experts often say attribution is the hardest part of analyzing an attack. So far we havent seen any evidence or disclosures from equifax or Law Enforcement about who may have been responsible in particular. We do know a little bit about how it happened. The attack essentially took place through an open source piece of software that equifax had been using. It was not something that equifax had designed, but it was something that equifax had essentially used for its service. But, you know, that doesnt really tell us who may have been responsible. And the hardest thing often with these types of attacks is figuring out who did it because hackers can often hide behind technologies like proxies and fire walls to mask their identity. Jims next question, where does this data go . Well, you know, typically what happens is that this data gets used by criminals, you know, siphoned off and reappropriated so that they can set up new accounts in other peoples names. And, you know, that data is essentially in the Public Domain now. Anyone who has access to it would be able to take advantage of it as they will. Now, one big question for equifax here is how protected was that data as it sat on its own servers . Were the hackers who were able to, you know, penetrate equifaxs systems actually able to read what was on equifaxs servers . Or if that information was encrypted and we dont have the answer to that right now. And his last question, what penalties they might face at the end of this. Are there federal penalties that can come at the end of these congressional hearings weve heard about . Or is it just the public lashing that equifax might get from those hearings and whatever fallout comes from them . Its hard to say. You know, the federal government could in theory, you know, try to sue. But you also have class action lawsuits already brewing against the company. The companys stock has dropped Something Like 20 in the recent days. So, you know, youve already seen a significant backlash affecting the company here and, you know, whether it continues with governmental penalties is a good question. To jan in new jersey. Good morning, jan. Caller good morning. Go ahead. Youre on with brian fung. Caller hi. One comment. These fees that are charged by these Credit Bureaus to freeze and unfreeze, one person times three bureaus to freeze lets say five bucks a pop. Thats 15 to freeze. Another 15 times three bureaus well, thats three bureaus. There should be a law reading the federal trade Commission Documents on this. These companies are allowed to charge for these freezes. We need to get something in place where when these kind of breeps happ breaches happen, none of them should be able to charge for the freezes and unfreezes. Because its their fault it was necessary. So thats just a comment. Also from the federal trade commission website, it says a credit freeze restricts access to your Credit Report which in turn makes it more difficult for identity thieves to open new accounts in your name. And it says whats the difference between that and a fraud alert. It says a credit freeze locks down your credit, fraud alert allows creditors to get a copy of the Credit Report as long as they take steps to identify your identity if you provide a telephone number. The business must call you to verify whether you are the person making the credit request. Fraud alerts may be effective at stopping someone from opening new credit accounts in your name but they may not prevent the misuse of your existing accounts. You still need to monitor all Bank Credit Cards and insurance statements for fraudulent transactions. It also says this so, jan, whats the question . Caller well, i just wanted to let people know that thats whats on the federal trade commissions website. So the question is, this initial fraud alert is good for 90 days . They stole my Social Security number for the rest of my life. What happens after the 90 days . Well, after the 90 days, youre able to renew the credit alert or if youre interested in setting up a much longer credit alert, you can do so by asking the same agencies to establish a credit fraud alert for up to seven years. Generally there are some heightened requirements in order to set that up. You have to generally prove that you have been a victim of Identity Theft. But, you know, that is something that you can do and a step to protect yourself. On twitter james is asking for a washington journal segment on arbitration versus lawsuits for these what he calls crony financial companies. Arbitration is a ripoff. Theres a bit of a controversy here in the wake of the equifax hack and disclosure on the clause they tried to include in this. So an arbitration clause essentially, you know, its a bit of legalese that companies tend to stick into contracts. And essentially it exempts them from being vulnerable to class action lawsuits and whatnot. And initially, the whole idea behind orb traarbitration claus to sort of loosen the load that was being dumped onto the court system. Essentially, you know, if we deal with some of these conflicts outside of court, then, you know, the court system can be more streamlined to act more quickly in the cases that do need court resolution. But the way that a lot of critics say the system has evolved is that now companies are inserting arbitration clauses into virtually everything. And effectively making it harder for consumers to seek redress when theyre harmed. And the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued a rule saying that these arbitration clauses should be banned. Now, one big question is is that rule going to survive . House republicans have already passed a bill trying to roll that rule back. The rule itself doesnt go into effect until later this month. So even if the rule banning o n arbitration clauses had been in effect today, it would not likely have covered the equifax arbitration clause that was a controversy last week. The attorney general of new york getting involved when it came to this arbitration clause issue with equifax. What did he do this week . Well, he started an investigation and hes looking into what equifax knew and when. What may have been breached. Whether any information may have made it onto what he called the black market. And well just have to see where that investigation winds up. Why does new yorks attorney general get a bite of this . Could any state attorney general get involved . In principle, yeah. New yorks attorney general happens to be one of the more aggressive attorneys general in the United States. Hes gone after internet providers for its not a surprise to see him going after equifax now on behalf of consumers. But it is going to be interesting to see how many other states are going to start filing lawsuits and conducting investigations here. Sue is waiting in colorado. Youre on with brian fung. Caller good morning. About a month ago, i dont recall if its our state or our county, the jury people notified a lot of us that their data had been breached. They said it was a minimal risk, but that if we wanted to, we could set up a fraud alert. And i did that with experian. And they did establish it. They sent me a couple letters saying everything is in place. Heres how long it lasts and so forth like you were speaking about. And then when i heard about the equifax deal, i thought id call experian and find out if they were interconnected with the other two agencies just to make sure if i got something with one would that take care of the other two. No, not without a fee. The other thing was, i called equifax itself from their website phone number and they wouldnt give me any information over the phone. They want you to go online. Well, if the state of colorado and or my county and equifax have been hacked, do you think i might go on my tiny pc im going to put in my personal data . That doesnt make sense. The state and equifax have all been breached. Do you think i need to go on my computer and put in my information on a website . Not going to happen. So youre caught between the devil and the deep blue sea if they wont take the information over the phone which i consider secure and also snail mail. Then how in the world could i set up alerts for the other two companies . And there is a way if you pay a fee that one company can also monitor the other two. So it just seems like the consumer is getting screwed. Thats my feeling. Sue, thanks for bringing it up. Theres actually we need to sort of distinguish better between the credit fraud alert, the 90day alert and the credit freeze. And what happens under the credit freeze is that you do have to call all three credit Court Reporting agencies to put it in place. What happens with the credit alert is that when you apply the credit alert from at one company, that company then alerts the other two Credit Reporting agencies and so thats why its a bit of a lesser step, takes a little bit less work to get that freeze applied to, you know, at all three agencies. As far as, you know, what these alerts are all sort of designed to do, you know, many of these steps are happening after the fact. Right . After weve learned that a data breach has occurred. You know, in general, even the freeze and the credit fraud alerts dont really do that much proactively to prevent your identity or your data from being stolen in the first place. Which is why its so critical for equifax to answer this question whether consumer data was encrypted on its servers. Dean has another question about what happened to the data. Has any of the data been detected on what you refer to as the dark web . Not that we know of yet. But these types of things tend to play out over months if not years. And it would be very difficult to trace any specific incidents of Identity Theft to any particular hack. So if these things play out over months and years, what happens for folks who sign up for that 90day monitoring . How do they extend beyond that . Well, you can call the Credit Reporting agencies and get that 90 days renewed or you can also if you have evidence that you have been a victim of Identity Theft, you can call and apply a sevenyear credit alert on your account. Kathryn is in lake view, new york. Good morning. Caller yes. Brian, when you first started talking you mentioned two things that we should do. And i missed both of them completely. Could you repeat that . Sure. Absolutely. So the first thing you can do is set up a credit freeze and essentially that involves calling each of the three Credit Reporting agencies equifax, experian, and transunion. And after paying a fee, youll be able to freeze your credit making it so anyone who is trying to start new credit accounts in your name wont be able to do so because the bank or the Credit Card Company or whomever would be authorized to create that account would not be able to pull your credit as part of that process. So that is one way that hackers would be more frustrated or more face a more difficult Time Starting fraudulent accounts. The other way you can sort of protect yourself here is set up a 90day credit alert credit fraud alert on your account. In that its free, it duszant cost money. It cover as short period of time, 90 days and you only have to call one Credit Reporting agency that would report the other two you want a credit alert on your account. It requires that anyone who wants to start a new account that the bank or Credit Card Company or whom ever would be starting the account call you to verify you were actually the one trying to start the new account. I want to ask you about reports of the sale of nearly 2 million in corporate stock by high level equifax employees before after the time period where the hacker may occur. And Insider Trading here. So the executives say they dont know of the hack at the ti time. I think whats really curious about this case is again how long it took equifax to come forward and disclose this to the public, even as executives were engaging in the stock trading. Ing rid is in elizabeth town, kentucky. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Im, at the moment working administrative my husband had work was 30 years in the military and im going to tell you i want everybody to know it. The fort knox fellow credit union and the dav. The puppet masters to the administration. The hit my husbands in army and can i ask you how cautious are you about putting your data online . That is a good question. I only use my computer to write administrative complaints and its going to be the first thing is the irs is they do visa. I can prove it, okay. They do visa fraud, mortgage fraud. Thats why we got homeless veterans. My house is a security instrument against somebody else. Gotingi rid, appreciate the call. Is this a matter of just accepting that this is a new way of life, that these sort of hacks are going to happen on a large scale basis Going Forward . What should consumers expect in the future . What should they expect of their law makers . It is discouraging to see the hacks continue to occur. We talk about the Lessons Learned but then the next Company Becomes vulnerable and and the next lesson learned. Exactly. And the fact that Companies Like equifax are asking you to six digits of your Social Security number to verify whether youve been effect bide this hack gives them more information that could be leaked out the next time and so it is a little discouraging to see hack after hack. The hope here, if there is a sliver of hope is that law makers and regulators will get together and apply greater scrutiny of this industry and that Corporate America will also apply greater self scrutiny to see how they can do better. We mentioned mark warner. Who are the other members of congress that would be leading these efforts . All the leaders of the house judiciary committee, the house energy and commerce committee, those three committees are all scheduled to hold hearings on this issue. We will be watching that very, very closely. The leaders of those committees are very powerful and will hold great sway over what happens next. Couple more calls for Washington Post. Craig is in red hill, pennsylvania. Good morning. Good morning and thank you for taking my call. I used to be an insurance agent. And back in the 90s my experience with the Credit Companies is that the Insurance Companies started to say that i had to, as an agent see what their credit score was. And yet the it credit score was higher than what they thought it should be. They could charge hundreds of more dollars more money. And i often wonder why they allowed the companies to do this because it wasnt part of underwriting. Some of these customers of mine had they were free of accidents or moving violation tickets but maybe they didnt pay their bill on the first of the month. Maybe they paid it on the 15th and that gave them a big credit. But what does that have to do with claims for Insurance Company . I think its fraujdulent and thy should not be in business at all because the banks use them to charge more money. Anything you want to pick up on that . I think it just highlights the way that data can be used across all facets of life. Weve been talking about consumer data and its use in starting credit cards or starting margages, but as your caller just pointed out, data is increasingly rampant in all sectors, including the insurance industry, including advertising and the collection and the use of this data most consumers probably dont know the extent to which these companies are sucking up all this information. Sue is in blooming dale, ohio, good morning. Good morning. Go ahead, sue. My question is what information was given out other than General Information such as names, Social Security number, address . Was the name of the bank that i deal with given out or the charge card company or account numbers or even drivers license . We do know that drivers licenses may have been effected here. But without knowing more about the details of the hack, hard to say in specific cases which accounts may have been effected of yours or which banks may be pulled into this murasz here. I wish i had more to tell you but i dont. The headline in todays Washington Post, equifax yet to answer important questions about the hack. When do we expect some of these details to start coming out . I would suggest that we should start to see some Greater Transparency here if the company doesnt volunteer some of this information between now and then. One more call. In fredric maryland, good morning. How are you today . Can you hear me . Go ahead. My question is regarding to Social Security number, i dont understand why we put so much emphasis on a sixdigit number that could be stolen so easily. There could be a new form of technology or a way to go about taking care of our Credit History and our online present without having to use such a form of security. Thanks for bringing up. Thats a great point. Howhats in the pipeline . Its called the block chain. If youre familiar with bitcoin or know what it is, bothing the block chain is essentially the technology that helps power bitcoin. Wharts rr interesting about bitcoin and the block chain is not only does it allow for the transfer of goods and services, to use it as currency but you can write things like contracts into it or a title to a house on it. Whats interesting is that all it is is a public ledger of actual transactions. So you can have a perfectly secure transaction online thats publicly viszable, even though the parties may actually be anonymous to the rest of the world. So that would be one way that Financial Services companies could seek to protect peoples privacy even as they conduct a lot of these sensitive and important transactions. Its Washington Post. Com. Appreciate the time as always. My pleasure. Tonight on cspan 3, well go to capitol hill for hearings on self driving trucks and over the counter drugs. Then well join a conversation at the bipartisan center. Join us this weekend as we take book tv and American History tv to concord, New Hampshire as we highlight the literary life of the granite states capitol city. Well fiche arlook at how New Hampshire became the first in the nation primary state with author scala and his scholar. We still see our svls as a place where a candidate can rise up from being a Virtual National unknown to becoming a contender for the nomination

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