In March 2017, Equifax, one of the credit reporting companies that evaluate the financial health of almost everyone in the United States, suffered a data breach that exposed the personally identifiable information of hundreds of millions of people.
Numerous scandals and controversies resulted from the incident: Equifax was condemned for everything from their negligent security posture to their clumsy response to the leak, and key executives were charged with corruption in the days that followed. The issue of who was responsible for the breach also has significant political ramifications on a worldwide scale.
What information was compromised, and how many people were impacted?
Attackers targeted a third-party online gateway that had been patched for a known vulnerability, but Equifax had not updated to the most recent version. For around two and a half months, the hackers had access to the companies’ servers, during which time they stole millions of documents containing private data.
As per reports, Equifax spent $1.4 billion on legal costs and bolstering its security measures as a result of the breach. The company paid a $700 million fine levied by the United States Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in July 2019.
The information that was stolen and compromised by the attackers was fairly detailed and covered a large number of people because Equifax especially deals in personal data. Names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and driver’s license numbers were disclosed, possibly affecting 143 million people or more than 40% of the US population. Only a small portion of the records—on the order of 200,000—also included credit card numbers; these individuals most likely paid Equifax directly to view their credit reports.
Equifax is Developing the Web3 KYC Solution
To create a Know Your Customer (KYC) solution, blockchain company Oasis Labs has teamed with credit reporting business Equifax, which is well known for having experienced one of the biggest customer data breaches to date. On October 26, Equifax and Oasis announced that the latter would develop a ddddddddddddd identity management and KYC solution for the industry on Oasis’ platform, utilizing application programming interfaces (APIs) to aid with checks and user identification.
The release made no mention of the precise technology that will support this service, and neither business immediately responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.
The term “Web3” alludes to the subsequent iteration of the internet, which its supporters predict would be more decentralized, based on blockchain networks, and employ cryptocurrencies.
Both companies contend that there hasn’t been a KYC solution specifically designed for Web3 that offers “high privacy protection,” and their suggested product is intended to fill this gap by sending wallets of users anonymized KYC credentials.
According to the statement, his credentials will be regularly updated, and Oasis promises that its “privacy-preserving features” will ensure that data is processed in confidence while keeping a record on the company’s blockchain.
Dock and Quadrata are the two Web3 companies that provide comparable solutions based on decentralized identification and each of their products is based on a decentralized identity. Few Web3 natives might be wary of the alliance in light of the serious data leak Equifax experienced in 2017.
Conclusion
As a result, the two businesses will collaborate to develop a solution by sending “anonymous KYC-ed credentials” to customers’ Web3 wallets. When Decrypt contacted Equifax and Oasis for more information regarding its technology, neither company answered right away.
In a news statement, Professor Dawn Song, the founder of Oasis Labs, stated, “We are trying to not only construct a better, more efficient decentralized identification and on-chain KYC solution but to help speed the adoption of Web3 and provide more trust to the sector.”
