What is the impact of the Equifax cybersecurity breach on American voters?

[russ_watters]

From the conclusion that if a company is sloppy with X it is sloppy with Y. Yes, it's not necessarily true, but it's a good place to make your bet.

Not every Chipolte has a contamination problem. Not every United passenger gets the snot beat out of him. But the companies still took a drubbing.

Well, those were direct impacts to the customer, so no imagination was required to extend them to broader impact*. So sure, it's reasonable to assume similar sloppiness elsewhere in the business, but someone (or a million separate someones) would have to think of a theoretically possible way a similar sloppiness could harm a customer. I think that's just too indirect.

*And actually, for Chipoltle it is potentially even worse since depending on the cause of the food contamination (I'm not that familiar) it could be that a single failure affects a large number of locations if it happens in the supply chain and not at the restaurant(s).

 

[Ygggdrasil]

IRS awards multimillion-dollar fraud-prevention contract to Equifax

The IRS will pay Equifax $7.25 million to verify taxpayer identities and help prevent fraud under a no-bid contract issued last week, even as lawmakers lash the embattled company about a massive security breach that exposed personal information of as many as 145.5 million Americans.

A contract award for Equifax's data services was posted to the Federal Business Opportunities database Sept. 30 — the final day of the fiscal year. The credit agency will "verify taxpayer identity" and "assist in ongoing identity verification and validations" at the IRS, according to the award.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/03/equifax-irs-fraud-protection-contract-243419