Privacy of half the US is likely leaked by a company

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US credit reporting giant Equifax announced Thursday that a cybersecurity incident could potentially impact approximately 143 million US consumers.

The number is almost half of the US population, but may seem small when compared to Yahoo's data breaches in 2013,2014 and 2016, which effected more than a billion users.

Equifax's announcement of the incident. /Equifax Screenshot

Various tech media in the US said the Equifax leak could be much more dangerous because the stolen content relates deeply to people's privacy.

Equifax said in a statement that criminals managed to gain access to certain files, including consumers' names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver's license numbers.

The company added that credit card numbers for approximately 209,000 US consumers were also obtained.

If combined, a hacker may be able to use this information to fake people's online identity and buy goods.

The leak also "gives the black market a potential gold mine of information about people's financial lives," as US tech website TechCrunch said.

The unauthorized access, which was discovered on July 29, occurred from mid-May through July 2017, according to Equifax – but the company chose not to tell the public about the incident until Thursday.

Equifax said it will send direct mail notices to consumers whose credit card numbers or dispute documents with personal identifying information were impacted, and that it is in the process of contacting US state and federal regulators.

Shares of Equifax slumped over seven percent on Thursday.

US residents reading this article may want to access the company's query website to find out if their information was leaked.

Equifax's query page. /Equifax Screenshot‍

However, the website may not work as well as the users' need, according to another TechCrunch article.