--- title: John Oliver Hacks into Equifax on 'Last Week Tonight' description: The comedy host tears into the circumstances behind a data breach that saw 145 million Americans have their private information stolen. canonical: https://time.com/4983405/equifax-last-week-tonight-john-oliver/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-10-16T07:33:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T11:19:12.932Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: John Oliver Hacks into Equifax on Last Week Tonight og:description: The comedy host tears into the circumstances behind the massive data breach. og:url: https://time.com/4983405/equifax-last-week-tonight-john-oliver/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: John Oliver Hacks into Equifax on Last Week Tonight twitter:description: The comedy host tears into the circumstances behind the massive data breach. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # John Oliver Hacks into Equifax on _Last Week Tonight_ by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Oct 16, 2017 7:33 AM UTC by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Oct 16, 2017 7:33 AM UTC On the latest _Last Week_ Tonight, John Oliver turned his attention to Equifax, the credit reporting agency whose name Oliver equated to a theatrical production involving Daniel Ratcliffe as a horse doing something untoward to a fax machine. As an agency that sells people’s personal financial information to businesses like banks, Equifax controls some of the most sensitive information in the world. Equifax was [told back in March](http://time.com/4947339/equifax-second-hack-earlier-march/?iid=sr-link6) that it needed to [patch](http://time.com/4974299/hacker-history-code-girls/?iid=sr-link1) its security software, but did not and hackers found the security flaw. Equifax learned about the breach in July, but did not tell the public until September—just enough time for three executives to sell some of their stock. The company claims those executives did not know about the breach, but that didn’t stop Oliver from having a laugh. “It’s one of those things that looks suspicious whether or not you’re doing something wrong,” says Oliver. “It’s like walking into a petting zoo with a bib on.” To add insult to injury, Equifax is poised to [make millions](http://time.com/money/4969163/equifax-hearing-elizabeth-warren-richard-smith/?iid=sr-link5) off its own data breach, in which some [145 million Americans](http://time.com/4966153/equifax-security-breach-increase/?iid=sr-link8) had their private information stolen. See what Oliver has say about Equifax in the clip above. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4983405/equifax-last-week-tonight-john-oliver/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4983405/equifax-last-week-tonight-john-oliver/"},"headline":"John Oliver Hacks into Equifax on Last Week Tonight","datePublished":"2017-10-16T07:33:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-31T11:19:12.932Z","description":"The comedy host tears into the circumstances behind the massive data breach","url":"https://time.com/4983405/equifax-last-week-tonight-john-oliver/","keywords":["Television","John Oliver","Last Week Tonight","Late Night Comedy"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/television/","name":"Television"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4983405/equifax-last-week-tonight-john-oliver/","name":"John Oliver Hacks into Equifax on Last Week Tonight"}}]}] ```