A Foolish Take: How the Equifax Mess Compares to Other Data Breaches

Americans were stunned when Equifax (NYSE: EFX), one of the nation's three largest credit reporting firms, disclosed that a data breach had potentially exposed the personal records of 143 million consumers.

Many media outlets called the data breach the worst ever, but that was in reference to the sensitivity of the data (full names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, and addresses), not the actual number of people affected.

By that measure, the Equifax hack comes in sixth -- behind Yahoo!'s internet business (now owned by Verizon Communications), MySpace, the adult social network FriendFinder, LinkedIn, and eBay.

Source: Fool.com