Equifax Q3 results: Not as bad as you might have hoped – hack only cost biz about $87m

Equifax's latest financials lay bare the costly fallout from the embarrassing security breach that exposed 143 million customers' privates in the US and 15.2 million records in the UK. Calendar Q3 numbers for the three months ended 30 September - the latter being the same month the company 'fessed up to the mega leak - include …

[DagD]

Of course not, The Federal Government gave them a "Bail Out".

[Anonymous Coward]

By my calculation they've so far spent 3.2% of turnover so almost in line with the proposed penalty under the GDPR. It seems that bothers them hardly at all.

[Anonymous Coward]

3.2% of turnover so almost in line with the proposed penalty under the GDPR . It seems that bothers them hardly at all.

I also noted that they were able to net the costs of their own incompetence off against their tax bill. That doesn't seem right, although I'm not sure there's much that can be done about it.

[SAdams]

Of course once its live, GDPR will be on top of costs incurred responding to the breach.

You would expect something like this (where both prevention and handling were so poor) to be close to the 4%. So companies should probably look at a potential 8% of turnover cost for data breaches.

I’m fairly sure Equifax could still be fined by various governments under existing legislation if they chose to.

[Lysenko]

Equifax customers buy their services specifically because they want to invade your privacy and rifle through your financial, residency and employment history (plus anything else they can get their hands on) so I therefore find it unsurprising that they don't really give a damn about wider privacy breaches. Many of these organisations (e.g. Insurance companies) already openly engage in racial and sex discrimination

and would cheerfully DNA profile you and share the results amongst themselves given half a chance.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Many of these organisations (e.g. Insurance companies) already openly engage in racial and sex discrimination

Evidence?

A no, "the premiums are higher because your multicultural environment is not particularly safe" is NOT racism, whatever the crazy corner says about that.

[CAPS LOCK]

This is all very well, but it isn't jut the plebs who's information has been leaked...

...Congressmen and Senators too, so I don't see the Gubmint bending over backwards to help out. In fact I see a Chapter something-or-other bankruptcy down the road. No doubt the astonishing bankruptcy laws of the good ol' USA of America will be used to protect the guilty. See Federal Mogul vs The People of Armley for more details of how these things work.

[Doctor Syntax]

"Expenses include costs to investigate and remediate the cybersecurity incident and legal and other professional services related thereto, all of which were expensed as incurred,"

Does that include the legal and professional services to clear management of dumping their shares?