By Craig Timberg & Elizabeth Dwoskin @ WashingtonPost.com, Sept. 7

Criminal hackers gained access to files including sensitive personal data on 143 million Americans — Social Security numbers, birth dates and home addresses — by penetrating a Web-based application for Equifax, the credit reporting agency said Thursday.

The breach, which the company said began in May, was discovered in July. Though Equifax said in a statement that its “core database” was not penetrated, the attackers did gain access to a wide range of data on what appears to be a majority of American adults, as well as some British and Canadian consumers.

[.....] Equifax said that it also lost control of an unspecified number of driver’s license numbers, along with the credit card numbers for 209,000 consumers and credit dispute documents for 182,000 [....]

Equifax is one of three largest U.S.-based credit reporting agencies that collect and analyze detailed financial records for a wide range of consumers worldwide [....]