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Root cause of Equifax hack is web app vulnerability

September 8, 2017
Matias Madou, Ph.D.
Red Equifax sign on a pole outside a glass office building with some tree branches visible.

Once again, the root cause of the Equifax hack is a web app vulnerability. These type of vulnerabilities have been around for over a decade but are still so relevant today. Each developer should be given the tools to avoid introducing these problems in the first place through training and real-time guidance while developing code.

Equifax said it discovered the breach on July 29. "Criminals exploited a U.S. website application vulnerability to gain access to certain files," the company said.

Read more: Credit-reporting-firm-equifax-says-cybersecurity-incident-could-potentially-affect-143-million-us-consumers

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About the author

Matias Madou, Ph.D.

Matias is a researcher and developer with more than 15 years of hands-on software security experience. He has developed solutions for companies such as Fortify Software and his own company Sensei Security. Over his career, Matias has led multiple application security research projects which have led to commercial products and boasts over 10 patents under his belt. When he is away from his desk, Matias has served as an instructor for advanced application security training courses and regularly speaks at global conferences including RSA Conference, Black Hat, DefCon, BSIMM, OWASP AppSec and BruCon.

Matias holds a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Ghent University, where he studied application security through program obfuscation to hide the inner workings of an application.

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