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“So far, the alleged injury is vague, very indefinite for most people,” says one legal analyst commenting in the wake of what has been described as one of the largest security hacks to have ever occurred in the United States.
Equifax fervently hopes that things stay just the same.
Because if they don’t, and increasingly more consumers in California and across the rest of the country begin to come forward with stories — and demonstrated proofs — of harm personally suffered from the recent hacking of confidential consumer data managed by Equifax, litigation drums will be sounding.
And with pronounced crescendo, given the reported 143 million people whose private information was heisted by cyber thieves.
What will now happen following the breach is largely unknown, Predictably, though, and as noted by one national media source reporting on the story, the criminals who engineered the massive scheme will certainly “attempt to make broader use of the stolen data” for personal profit and at the detriment of affected consumers.
And that will spell the harm necessary as a prerequisite for any given plaintiff to state a claim in court and demand damages.
That scenario is obviously nightmarish for Equifax, which is reportedly working feverishly to quell concerns and take related actions that might reduce its future liability in the matter.
A recent Wall Street Journal report is not helping the company’s public-relations efforts. That publication contradicts statements made by Equifax indicating that hackers first gained access to private data sometime this past May. The Journal states that cyber criminals penetrated internal Equifax systems a full two months before that.