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Equifax Sent Breach Victims to a Fake Website: What Happened

In 2017, Equifax’s official Twitter account mistakenly linked breach inquiries to a researcher-created lookalike website. Here’s what is known—and what the reporting does not establish.
From TheFinanceBase Team3 min to read
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Yes. In September 2017, Equifax’s official Twitter account mistakenly directed people asking about its data breach to securityequifax2017.com, a lookalike site created by security researcher Nick Sweeting. Equifax’s own incident site was equifaxsecurity2017.com. The episode exposed a trust and phishing risk during a high-pressure response; the available reporting does not establish how many people visited the imitation site or whether anyone submitted information there.

What happened

People seeking help about the Equifax breach encountered replies from the company’s official Twitter account that linked to the wrong domain. The intended incident website was equifaxsecurity2017.com, which Equifax identified in its September 15, 2017 disclosure. The mistaken destination, securityequifax2017.com, was a lookalike created by Nick Sweeting to demonstrate how easily a confusing domain could be mistaken for the real one.

SecurityWeek reported on September 21, 2017, that Equifax had posted at least eight replies containing the mistaken link and later removed the tweets. That is the publication’s reported count, not an independently audited total. SecurityWeek also quoted Sweeting as saying his imitation form did not store submitted information. The available records do not establish how many people reached the site, whether anyone entered data, or whether any information was captured. It would be inaccurate to say that users’ data was stolen through this particular site.

Why the mistake mattered

The links appeared while people were trying to learn whether they were affected by a major breach and what to do next. Equifax announced on September 7, 2017, that it had launched a consumer support package and dedicated incident website. In its September 15 disclosure, the company initially estimated that 143 million U.S. consumers were potentially affected and said an Apache Struts vulnerability in its online dispute portal had been exploited.

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The Federal Trade Commission later described approximately 147 million people as affected in its July 22, 2019 settlement announcement. These are estimates reported by different organizations at different times, not interchangeable counts: Equifax’s initial 2017 estimate was 143 million U.S. consumers, while the FTC’s 2019 announcement used approximately 147 million people.

The mistaken replies created a separate problem from the breach itself. A company account that sends users to a lookalike domain can undermine confidence in the official destination and put people at risk of disclosing personal information to an impostor. In its 2019 settlement announcement, FTC Chairman Joe Simons said, “Companies that profit from personal information have an extra responsibility to protect and secure that data.” That statement addressed corporate responsibility, not specifically the mistaken tweets.

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How to recognize an official Equifax destination

Domain names can look nearly identical while leading to different websites. In this incident, the order of the words was the tell: Equifax’s identified incident domain was equifaxsecurity2017.com; Sweeting’s lookalike was securityequifax2017.com. A familiar brand name in a URL is not enough to establish that a site is official.

  • Check the full domain carefully, including the order and spelling of words, rather than relying on the page’s logo or appearance.
  • For breach or settlement information, navigate from a government agency’s official website instead of following an unexpected social-media reply, email, text, or search ad.
  • Be wary of anyone asking you to pay just to file a claim for benefits. In its July 2019 warning about fake Equifax settlement websites, the FTC said consumers did not have to pay to file claims for the referenced benefits and warned about callers offering to file claims.

The FTC’s 2019 alert directed consumers to start at its own Equifax page: FTC Equifax Data Breach Settlement. That dated guidance does not establish that a claim process is open today. For any current settlement question, begin at the FTC’s official site and verify the status there rather than relying on an old notice or an unsolicited offer.

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What the 2019 settlement does—and does not—tell you

The FTC announced a global settlement of at least $575 million and potentially up to $700 million in July 2019. The announcement concerned Equifax’s data breach and described the settlement’s consumer relief; it is not evidence that people lost information through Sweeting’s imitation site. Nor does a 2019 claim warning mean that the referenced claim process remains available now.

The Senate Banking Committee’s October 17, 2017 hearing record recounts the official and fake domain names and the mistaken tweet. SecurityWeek’s contemporaneous report supplies the attributed details about Sweeting, the reported number of replies, their removal, and what he said about the form. Those sources document a serious link-verification failure, but do not resolve site traffic or user submissions.

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