In the U.S., it's almost comically easy to hack someone's life. All you need are a few numbers to access most smartphones, a string of characters to access most email accounts and a handful of biographical details to steal most identities.
And so when news broke Sept. 7 that Equifax, one of America's largest credit-rating agencies, had been compromised, exposing data from as many as 143 million accounts, people were rightfully concerned. The hack wasn't as large as other high-profile incidents, like the ones at Yahoo and MySpace, which jeopardized an estimated 500 million and 360 million user accounts, respectively. But it's a likely gold mine for identity thieves, especially considering the type of information that was exposed--not just names and addresses, but also Social Security, credit card and driver's license numbers. That's more than enough to open a credit card in someone's name, take out a loan, and more. (Equifax, which is now facing more than 30 new lawsuits in the U.S., did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
There are ways to prevent these calamities. One way, of course, is for companies to do a better job securing users' information so it doesn't get hacked in the first place. But the bigger issue, say industry experts, is that the information we use to establish and verify our identities--passwords, pass codes, biographical details--is simply too easy to steal. And solving that problem requires overhauling the way we think about proving who we are, both online and in real life.
Read more > Equifax and the Perils of Password Protection
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