Equifax hack targeted specific accounts: report

The hackers behind the Equifax breach appear to have taken special interest in the personal information of specific individuals, according to a Bloomberg report.

While the hackers gained personal data on a huge portion of American adults, Bloomberg reports that they also “sought information on specific people.”

Equifax has yet to come forward with an official statement about what files the hackers accessed, beyond saying the hackers could have potentially accessed information including the Social Security numbers of up to 143 million people.

{mosads}Bloomberg’s piece is based on anonymous interviews with people familiar with the investigation from both Equifax’s and the FBI’s perspectives. 

The targeting of specific people might provide some clue as to the intended purpose of the attacks. It might mean the hackers wanted to conduct identity theft or scams against high-value targets. It could also mean the attacks were intended for espionage purposes. 

The Bloomberg piece also details internal squabbles leading up to the massive breach. 

Equifax had contracted the firm Mandiant to investigate an unrelated breach at one of its subsidiaries in March, a “top secret” project overseen by former Equifax CEO Richard Smith.

But the relationship soured when Mandiant notified Equifax that unpatched security flaws and missteps in security policy could lead to a breach. Equifax, in turn, believed Mandiant’s investigators were undertrained.