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Equifax, Software Maker at Odds Over Responsibility Post-Breach

Apache Software Foundation claims to have supplied a software patch that could have prevented the Equifax security breach, which exposed the sensitive information of 143 million people.

(TNS) -- Equifax and a software company are blaming each other for a glitch that allowed hackers to obtain Social Security numbers and other sensitive info for 143 million people.

The Atlanta-based company, one of the nation’s three key credit bureaus that track individuals’ credit histories, said late Wednesday that hackers breached a vulnerable spot in a U.S. website application called Apache Struts CVE-2017-5638. Equifax disclosed last week that it discovered in July that hackers had tapped a large trove of personal data on most adults in America.

But in a statement Thursday, Apache Software Foundation, which provides the application, said it provided and announced a patch for the software fault on March 7, well before Equifax said the security breach began in mid-May.

“In conclusion, the Equifax data compromise was due to their failure to install the security updates provided in a timely manner,” the foundation said.

The 18-year-old foundation said it is an all-volunteer organization that produced open-source Java applications for government and business users, including Fortune 100 companies.

Equifax couldn’t be reached immediately for a response to Apache Software Foundation’s statement.

©2017 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta, Ga.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.