Data breaches

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee concluded that last year’s massive data breach at Equifax was fully preventable, but stopped short of recommending new laws aimed at averting future hacks. Democrats called the final report a “missed opportunity.”

Credit reporting firms with significant operations in New York will face new cybersecurity and registration requirements to stave off concerns related to a breach of Equifax's systems last year.

WEI Mortgage discovered a data breach from an email phishing scam last fall that may have exposed loan package information and identifying data such as Social Security numbers.

The agency's acting chief said hundreds of data breaches justified a halt on collecting information from firms, but experts question that logic.

The news of the data breach cast a shadow over relatively strong first-quarter earnings for the Atlanta bank.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is among several agencies that "continue to investigate events related to" last year's Equifax brief, the credit reporting firm said in a securities filing.

It is unclear whether the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is abandoning its supervisory oversight of Equifax or just taking a back seat to the Federal Trade Commission as the latter investigates the credit bureau.

Credit score damage is a chief regret among consumers, but among financial goals it impedes, buying a home lies further down the food chain than other priorities.

Acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Mick Mulvaney has cited hundreds of confirmed and suspected data breaches as justification for his halting the bureau's data collection activities last month.

The two senators are set to introduce a bill that would force such firms to pay $100 per customer whose personal information was compromised.

A breach at Alteryx that exposed sensitive information from more than 100 million U.S. households could add to fraud risks in housing finance

Equifax reported earnings that were 27% lower and mortgage services revenue was 2% lower on a year-to-year basis after revealing a major breach and taking steps to improve security.

Calls for less reliance on credit bureaus and Social Security numbers for verification are leading many to envision a future of identity on a distributed ledger.

Equifax continues work to add new security features and restore full access to The Work Number following a report highlighting potential security vulnerabilities in a browser-based portal of its employment verification service.

Recently exposed security vulnerabilities in an Equifax tool used extensively in the mortgage industry are raising new questions about the reliability and veracity of the beleaguered credit bureau's employment verification service.

Equifax observed an increasingly well-worn ritual of scandal-ridden firms by jettisoning CEO Richard Smith: apologize, promise to do better in the future, and sacrifice your top executive in the hopes it will ward off action by Congress and regulators.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Wells Fargo’s treatment of customers was “egregious and unacceptable," hinting that more regulatory action was likely.

Automated data validations are integral to a seamless digital mortgage experience. But the extent of data exposed in the Equifax breach raises questions about the risk of fraudsters exploiting those technologies to further compromise consumer data.

Banks should not point blame at the credit bureau but rather should step up and demonstrate their commitment to their customers. If you punt the problem to Equifax, it suggests you don’t really care.

Everybody say it with me, “Customer data is a liability.” And the Equifax breach shows why.