The WP Wednesday Podcast

In this episode we talk with Sara Hawkins about the Equifax breach and what you can do now.

BBP : Episode 54 – Equifarked

Tech News

  • Apple Announced three new iPhones yesterday at the new Steve Jobs auditorium at the spaceship
    • Wireless charging
    • New A11 Bionic Processor
    • Glass backs
    • 2GB RAM ??
    • No OLED
    • Camera can shoot in 4k
    • $699 and $799
    • Preorder is Sept 15 and available Sept 22
    • FaceID failure during demo, but basically it will unlock with the camera and your face
    • Black, White, and new gold color
    • iPhone X
      • Bezel is all but gone
      • No home button
      • Case is glass and stainless stell
      • $1000 sale 10/27 with shipment on 11/3
      • Screen is an OLED display made by…. SAMSUNG!
      • The home button and power button are combined to be the Side Button
        • Long press for Siri, double click for Apple Pay
      • Two hour increase in battery than the iPhone 7
      • Better flash, slow motion  recording and of course 4k
    • Other phones cost
      • S8 : 700
      • Note 8 : 900
      • Pixel and Pixel XL : ??  Pixel was $650 & $850

And now to the even bigger issue in the last several days, the Equifax breach.

  • Equifax announed 143 million customer records exposed.
    • Just in ND, the attorney general has stated over 248k exposed http://www.kfyrtv.com/content/news/ND-AG-says-more-than-248000-North-Dakotans-affected-by-Equifax-data-breach-444010593.html
    • Rick Smith, Chairman and CEO of Equifax on the breach
    • Issues
      • Breach occurred in May – July, found in July, made public in Sept
      • Three executives sold stock. On 8/1 and 8/2 the CFO and two other execs sold $1.8million in stock, which dropped over 10% on the announcment. Equifax claims the officers had no knowledge of the hack
      • Your information could be in Equifax because they gather information on nearly everyone to sell to credit checking agencies. It knows everything about your credit cards, bank accounts, mortgage, auto loans, everything.
      • The website to find out if you’re affected has some issues
        • Stock WordPress
        • Site was flagged by OpenDNS as a potential phishing site
        • WHOIS showed domain wasn’t owned by Equifax
        • Site asked for six of nine numbers of social security number
        • Can state you’ve been breached using some test info… I believe this is residual from testing, but could show a larger issue.
    • What to do
      • Can check to see if you’re affected
        • Be advised the FREE service may turn into a PAID version after a time
        • Also, read the T&C’s on what rights you are giving up before you agree…. Rumors of being limited on legal actions against Equifax. It’s now being reported that the verbage has been removed, so you are NOT giving up legal rights.
      • Put a credit freeze on accounts
      • Don’t respond to phishing attacks to give out personal information via text or email.


Don’t forget to send us any suggestions for apps to review or people to interview. And subscribe to the BeBizzy Break Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher Radio.
And as always, leave the technical stuff to us!