Bloom Weekly Update 9/26

With Equifax replacing their CEO, more security holes appearing, and the rapidly evolving credit landscape, it’s an incredible time in the credit industry!

Since Last Week:

Our Slack surpassed 2,200 people!

We are extremely appreciative of the support from our community. Security journalist, Brian Krebs, highlighted Bloom as a Credit Bureau / FICO replacement.

5 Minute Crypto invited us to interview on their podcast. The community has voiced support for the Bloom protocol on Twitter, Reddit and around the web. We’ve received amazing introductions and offers for support.

Community involvement makes the development of the project much easier. Please continue to read below on how you can help because there are some big projects we are working on, and we need input.

Bloom Coverage:

Since the hack, Brian Krebs has closely reported on the credit bureaus. He recently tweeted Bloom as a potential credit bureau/FICO replacement.

For context, Brian Krebs was the first journalist to break the story that Target Corporation had been breached of 40 million credit card data. He is also credited with being the first journalist to report on the Stuxnet malware.

Our team has followed his research for years, which is why we’re honored to have him call out Bloom as a potential FICO/Credit Bureau replacement.

Around the web:

When 5 Minute Crypto reached out for a podcast interview, we gladly accepted. They interview founders and create 5 minute overviews of projects.

Take a listen to the episode on Bloom here.

State of Credit: Bloom Survey

We are working on a key research project to uncover the biggest issues with global credit. The responses from this survey will guide the protocol for years.

EVERY response counts, EVERY piece of data we gain is absolutely crucial. We are looking for this survey to represent a global population, across various regions. Please share widely!

As a token of our appreciation, we will be giving out $100 Gift Cards to five randomly selected respondents.

The survey is 5–10 minutes: Link Here

If you want to learn more about this project, we wrote a full post.

In the News:

Equifax board of directors determined that it’s time to replace their CEO.

This was expected. Their continued lack of basic security precautions was NOT expected.

Reports online highlighted that they offer a PIN to provide additional security to credit accounts. The problem? Experian (one of the “big 3” credit bureaus) allows anyone to request the PIN needed to unlock the credit file. Full story here.

Equifax and Experian do not understand the basic principles of security.

Equifax (the bureau that recently faced the hack) directed users on Twitter to visit securityequifax2017[dot]com. The URL is blocked by multiple browsers as a phishing site. (They intended to send users to their actual URL, equifaxsecurity2017.com)

What’s worse? They’ve decided to use a brand new domain, trustedidpremier.com. On the surface, it looks quite like a phishing site and was only registered a few weeks ago. Because of this, many email providers now mark this URL as fraudulent.

What else we are working on:

• Last week, we highlighted that we would be updating our landing page. We’ve made some changes to the design and branding. Check out the progress of our new design here.
• We connected with a number of excellent data providers around the world thanks to support introductions from our community. We are in the process of establishing them as the first data providers and trusted nodes.
• This week we published: 10 Problems with Credit in the United States on our blog.
• We’ve made minor changes to our Whitepaper which is updated on the website, with further changes to come in the upcoming weeks.
• As a result of the Equifax breach, a number of loan providers around the world have been reaching out to our team. It’s a high volume of requests, but we’re steadily making progress on speaking with everyone.

Ways you can help:

• The survey is the most important thing we are looking for your help on this week. We’ll be giving out 5 $100 gift cards to respondents. Help us spread this widely!
• We’ve been getting some great emails to our new team email. To make sure we quickly point you to the best team member, please include specifics if possible. team@hellobloom.io.
• The community was extremely helpful with introductions to many of the data providers and trusted nodes, so please continue to make introductions if you can. We want to have as many relationships established prior to launching.
• Please continue to ask and answer questions on Slack as your involvement and engagement has been extremely helpful. Thank you!
• If you haven’t already, please join our Slack community.
• And follow us on Twitter.