Great, because we needed some more news to add to the EQUIFAX saga. It’s clear that the company responsible for the biggest cybersecurity incident in history is not trusted by anyone. However, the Internal Revenue Service seems to think otherwise. In fact, it seems like the IRS trusts EQUIFAX more than ever!
The IRS has granted a multi-million-dollar contract to EQUIFAX. With the purpose of verifying taxpayers’ identities, I am not making this up. This all happened on September 30, the very last day of the fiscal year. With a contract signed for $7.3 Million dollars, which was posted yesterday on the Federal Business Opportunities website.
The synopsis taken from the IRS is as appalling as this news sounds:
This action was to establish an order for third party data services from Equifax to verify taxpayer identity and to assist in ongoing identity verification and validations needs of the Service. A sole source order is required to cover the timeframe needed to resolve the protest on contract TIRNO-17-Z-00024. This is considered a critical service that cannot lapse.
You are reading this correctly, ladies and gentlemen. The company that hired a music major as a Chief of Security. The company that led concerned citizens to phishing websites. The very company that is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice is once again trusted with the information of American citizens.
It’s like a nightmare in the real world. Why would the IRS trust such vital and delicate information to a company that showed its incompetency in many occasions? It just doesn’t make any sense! Well, now we can only hope that the company actually follows the current cybersecurity measures. If not, then I guess we’ll see yet another leak with even more sensitive information exposed. I mean, if we’re lucky, the company won’t make a mistake like this again.
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