Equifax Directed Consumers to a Fake Website

Oct 03,2017

Just when we thought the Equifax security breach couldn’t get any worse, we learned that Equifax sent consumers to a fake website to check if their information was compromised.

Equifax set up the website equifaxsecurity2017.com for consumers to use to see if their data was exposed. To prove how easy it would be to phish customers’ information by sending them to a separate website, a developer created a fake site, securityequifax2017.com. Not only did people visit that website to check their information, but Equifax’s own support team actually sent customers to the fake website.

Even if consumers went to the correct domain, they were then routed to a second URL, trustedidpremier.com. The website was legitimate, but it certainly caused confusion.

Consumers More at Risk of Identity Theft After News of Security Breach

The developer who created the fake website, Nick Sweeting, said he wanted to demonstrate how easy it would be for scammers to build fake websites with nearly identical URLs. Scammers could then steal the personal information typed in by trusting consumers.

To make matters worse, consumers are especially vulnerable to identity and data theft after news of a big security breach. Scammers use the opportunity to send out phishing emails disguised as help from the affected company. Just one day after the launch of the Equifax security website, scammers had created 194 phishing websites with similar URLs.

“In the wake of a security breach of this magnitude, it is unacceptable that Equifax further put consumers at risk by directing them to a fake website,” said Attorney Walter Clark, founder of Walter Clark Legal Group.

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