Why we’re not surprised that the number of UK Equifax cyber-hack victims has grown again!

At first, Equifax indicated there were some 300,000 UK victims of the Equifax cyber-hack, which then grew to 400,000, and eventually almost 700,000.

Now, we know Equifax has sent out warning letters to more than 860,000 of their UK customers, and we expect our client numbers to grow as more people are potentially able to join our Equifax action and claim compensation.

That’s more than double the original estimation, but this kind of thing is not uncommon at all. In fact, it can be incredibly hard to know exactly how many people are affected by a cyber-hack initially, and in some cases, it can be hard to know the exact numbers at all.

The problem with a cyber-hack of this nature, where a known vulnerability was not patched up and cyber-attacker(s) had easy access to systems, is that it can be hard to know for sure how deep they delved, and how much data was exposed. Conversely, if a spreadsheet is stolen, you can almost say for certain that the people whose data is on the spreadsheet are the victims, and that’s that. But, when a system is broken into, we could be talking everyone on it.

TalkTalk was another classic example of this. In fact, we’ve been told that there’s no way for certain that TalkTalk can verify precisely whose data was breached, and whose wasn’t.

We’re therefore not at all surprised that the number of UK Equifax hack victims has grown again, and we really wouldn’t be surprised if the number increased even more.

Are you one of the new batch affected?

If you’re one of the new batch of Equifax victims that’s been notified that your data was also compromised in the massive cyber-attack, you’re still in-time to claim with us…

We’ve initiated cases for our current client group, but you’re welcome to join the group now. Please contact our team by calling 0800 634 7575 for help and advice.

We also understand that the notifications of the new batch have caused some alarm because they reportedly fail to identify key things like what data has been breached, and how Equifax have their data in the first place.

It’s known that Equifax receive data from banks and lenders as part of credit checks, so you may not have directly authorised them to have your data, but you may have indirectly allowed them to have your data for credit referencing.

What’s the claim about?

Equifax failed to patch a known security vulnerability that was then exploited by cyber-attackers. Their own systems reportedly failed to detect the ongoing vulnerability. This means the data protection breach was entirely preventable.

We’re therefore confident they will accept liability for cases, and our aim is to ensure UK victims receive compensation for the breach.

Council worker fined after being caught sharing personal data on Snapchat

Councils and local government authorities still failing to report data protection breaches