Cyber Security case-Data Breach at Equifax

Critical assessment of Equifax’s Response to the 2017 Data Breach Your name Subject and Section Professor’s Name Date Introduction The recent data breach that occurred in Equifax in September 2017, whereby the company lost personal identity of 145 million people, is a fresh reminder of the significance of cyber security to every data centric industry. Equifax being among the world’s largest credit reporting agency, their inability to patch the said weaknesses and contain the breach was followed by more operational and image loss. The following analysis looks at the measures Equifax took to recover, the communication process and its response to the event (Srinivasan et al., 2017). Besides, it includes details of the aftermath and practical lessons for future consideration in case of similar incidences. Analysis of Equifax’s response Recovery Actions Equifax took the following steps in recognition of the breach: Firstly, the firm hired cybersecurity firm Mandiant and the FBI to look into the assault, and the company isolated IP addresses that had been scorched and put unguarded systems to pace. Also, it renewed years expired SSL certificates and acquire capabilities of monitoring the traffic with suspicion on critical systems. Consumers could benefit from Equifax through free credit monitoring, credit protection, and credit freeze for the subsequent year. However, these measures were widely criticized as insufficient due to the long term impacts of the breach to the affected individual​​. Even so, its recovery actions demonstrated that the company had gross vulnerabilities at the time of the data breach. The breach targeted well documented weaknesses in Apache Struts which were reported months before an attack. This lack of organization in creating and applying patches led to weak technical protection, which can be explained by outdated technology and slow response to cybersecurity threats​​ (Srinivasan et al., 2017). Communication Strategies When the breach occurred at Equifax the communication done during and after the breach had several mistakes. The company took more than a month, from July 29 to Septemb...