Credit score company Equifax is reportedly set to pay $1.38bn as a settlement to its major data breach back in 2017.
The settlement has been agreed by a federal judge in Atlanta, according to a report from Bank Info Security.
As part of the agreement, affected consumers will receive free credit monitoring, if this was already a service the customer had, they will receive up to $125 in a cash payment. However, a total of $31m is being used for these cash payments, meaning that the more people applying for the compensation, payouts will shrink.
Additionally, the company will have to spend $1bn in security upgrades. The article states, $1.38bn will be the minimum payout from Equifax.
The document was similar to the previous announcement from the Federal Trade Commission AND the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) last year. As part of the settlement, Equifax will be giving US consumers six free credit reports annually for the next seven years.
Equifax’s data breach in question occurred in 2017. Hackers exploited a vulnerability to access personal information of 147 million people, of which 145.7m social security numbers and 209,000 payment card details were compromised.
An alert had been made to Equifax about the vulnerability in its database but no patches were made until months later.
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