The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) imposed a penalty of 1116 on Equifax Ltd..£440,000 fine for failing to manage and monitor the security of UK consumer data it outsourced to its US parent。

The breach allowed hackers to gain access to the personal data of millions of people and put British consumers at risk of financial crime.。

In 2017, Equifax Inc, Equifax's parent company, suffered one of the largest cybersecurity breaches in history.。As Equifax outsourced the data to Equifax Inc's servers in the US for processing, cyber hackers were able to gain access to the personal data of about 13.8 million British consumers.。

UK consumer data obtained by hackers included names, dates of birth, phone numbers, Equifax member login information, partially exposed credit card information and address。

This cyber attack and unauthorized data access was completely avoidable。Equifax does not view its relationship with its parent company as an outsourcing。As a result, it has failed to provide adequate oversight of how the data it sends is properly managed and protected.。Equifax Inc has known weaknesses in its data security systems, but Equifax has not responded appropriately to protect UK customers "data.。

Equifax didn't find out UK consumer data was accessed until 6 weeks after Equifax Inc discovered the hack。The company learned of the incident about five minutes before the US parent company announced the incident.。This meant Equifax was unable to deal with complaints received after the incident was published, resulting in delays in contacting customers in the UK.。

After the cybersecurity breach, Equifax issued a public statement about the impact of the incident on UK consumers, but gave an inaccurate impression of the number of consumers affected.。Equifax also failed to conduct quality assurance checks on complaints after the cybersecurity incident, meaning complaints were mishandled and caused unfair treatment to consumers.。

Patricio Remon, president of Equifax Europe, said:

"Equifax has cooperated fully with the FCA during this long-term investigation and has been recognised by the FCA for this collaboration, our transformation programme and the voluntary consumer remedies we have implemented following the incident.。Since the cyber attack on our company six years ago, we have invested more than $1.5 billion in security and technology transformation.。Few companies devote more time and resources to ensuring that consumers "information is protected than Equifax。

"We have built one of the most advanced and effective cybersecurity programs in the world.。Our maturity has surpassed all major industry benchmarks, and our posture - the ability to protect our networks, information and systems from threats - has ranked in the top 1% of technology companies analyzed for three consecutive years and in the top 3% of financial services companies。