Some crises never seem to go away. They just get worse. Such is the case of Equifax, which bungled a mammoth hack last year in which 145.5 million customers had their data stolen. It has now confirmed that an additional 24 million consumers had their names and partial identifications taken. As outrageous as this is, the knowledge that Equifax was entirely responsible for the successful hack is even worse. The company failed to update a server and left a gaping hole in its security that thieves exploited. It will be a long time before consumers trust the company again and that is as it should be. Equifax was lax about protecting data, the one thing it needed to have. It destroyed its reputation in the incident and it can’t seem to recover. One almost wishes the company would go away and let other credit reporting agencies take its place.
Good PR
The mayor of Oakland, CA warned undocumented immigrants that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) was about to make arrests in the town. She did it because Oakland is a self-proclaimed sanctuary city. ICE was furious with her and said 850 targets had slipped away. The mayor put her reputation on the line and that of Oakland as well. It was a courageous act and good PR — what one does and not what one says. Maybe the next time ICE will leave Oakland alone. That is surely the hope of the mayor and immigrants there. ICE is running roughshod over the lives of the undocumented and creating havoc where there doesn’t need to be any. It is good that it has had its comeuppance and perhaps the mayor’s act will be emulated elsewhere in the US.