Technology

Ant Financial has denied claims that it covertly raided Equifax — the U.S. credit firm that was hit by a hack last year — to grab information, including code, confidential data and documents to help recruit staff for its own credit scoring service.

The Alibaba affiliate, which is valued at over $100 billion, launched Sesame Credit in China in 2015, and a report this week from The Wall Street Journal suggests that it leaned heavily on Equifax to do so. Ant Financial hired China-born Canadian David Zou from Equifax and the Journal claims that Zou looked up employee information to gauge potential hires and squirreled away confidential documents via his personal email account.

Ant was said to have offered Chinese staff at Equifax lucrative raises — reportedly tripling their salaries — with a focus on those who &provided instructions on specific Equifax information… if they jumped ship.& Apparently, however, only Zou did.

Zou, for this part, denies the claims.He said he looked up Equifax team members to help with work on his project in Canada, and forward information to his email account in order to continue his work when he went home.

Ant Financial went a step further with its own denial — from the firmstatement:

Ant Financial did not use Equifax intellectual property or trade secrets, including code, algorithms or methodology in the development of our credit rating product. Ant Financial has found absolutely no evidence of Equifax software, data or code having been transferred to our systems.

We did not directly or indirectly encourage potential job applicants to obtain Equifax intellectual property or trade secrets. This would be a violation of Ant FinancialCode of Business Conduct and we would take immediate action against any employee found engaging in this behavior. Further, we have specific agreements with our third-party recruiters that prohibit them from violating intellectual property rights of any parties. If any recruiter is found to have conducted such activities, we will stop accepting candidate referrals from them and may take legal action against them.

Ant said the Journalreport is &full of innuendo based on disjointed facts and coincidence in timing.&

Beyond Ant, the report claims Equifax firm was also concerned when an unnamed Chinese firm swapped members of its delegation in the run-up to a meeting, a tactic that is apparently common among potential cases of espionage.

The company had been in contact with the FBI, but ultimately Equifax decided againstpushing the matter. The Journalreport also suggested that federal investigators backed down because they sensed that Equifax didn&t believe it had information that Chinese spies would be keen to get hold of. In addition, it hadn&t lost consumer information. Ultimately, of course, that leaked out when the firm was hacked last year.

&The story not only promotes hostility against a specific company, but also paints an overall narrative that maligns Chinese companies as a whole, and further promotes culturally divisive perceptions of ethnic Chinese people in America,& Ant said in itsstatement, which is attributed to the companygeneral counsel, Leiming Chen.

EE is well known for offering superfast 4G speeds to mobiles and very competitive broadband deals, but did you know it offers fast Wi-Fi to mobile devices, too This week comes news that EE is offering a massive discount code on its best mobile broadband plans, with savings of up to £240.

Mobile broadband lets you create a Wi-Fi network from a 4GEE

What is the IoT

The world around us is getting smarter and more connected as technology becomes a common sight in many areas.

Digital devices are not just in our pockets or our offices, but increasingly in our homes, buildings, and many places and cities. Helping collect, analyse and monitor data and information about their surroundings, these