It now appears that the data breach at American credit rating agency Equifax, which was reported earlier this month and is believed to have taken place between May and July 2017, wasn't the first one this year. There was another breach in March 2017, reports Bloomberg. While the breach in May-July exposed personal and financial data of over 143 million people, the one in March was related to a payroll service. The company has claimed that the security breach in March was communicated to the customers as well as the regulator. The report also mentions that the hackers on both occasions were the same. However, the company insists that the two incidents are not related. In March, Equifax notified some of its banking customers about a breach. Then law firm King & Spalding, which represents Equifax, hired FireEye Inc. owned cybersecurity firm Mandiant on behalf of the company. This probe is believed to have continued till May, but wasn't publicly disclosed till now. Mandiant was brought in once again in July. The leak comprised millions of Social Security Numbers (SSNs) of American citizens, driving license numbers, and a couple hundred thousand credit card numbers, among other documents. Subsequently, it came to light that personal and financial data of around 400,000 Britons and unspecified data of about 100,000 Canadians had also been part of the leak. Since the September 7 announcement, two senior security executives of the company have retired: The company announced that the Chief Information Officer and Chief Security Officer are…
