Equifax Inc on Friday said that it made changes in its top management as part of its review of a massive data breach, with two technology and security executives leaving the company “effective immediately.”
The credit-monitoring company announced the changes in a press release that gave its most detailed public response to date of the discovery of the data breach on July 29 and the actions it has since taken.
The statement came on a day when Equifax’s share price continued to slide following a week of relentless criticism over its response to the data breach.
Lawmakers, regulators and consumers have complained that Equifax’s response to the breach, which exposed sensitive data like US social security numbers of up to 143 million people, had been slow, inadequate and confusing.
Equifax chief security officer Susan Mauldin and chief information officer David Webb were retiring, the company said.
It named Mark Rohrwasser as interim chief information officer and Russ Ayres as interim chief security officer, the statement said.
Rohrwasser has led the company’s international IT operations and Ayres was a vice president in the IT organization.
The company also confirmed that Mandiant, the threat intelligence arm of the cyberfirm FireEye Inc, has been brought on to help investigate the breach, while it has hired public relations companies DJE Holdings Ltd and McGinn & Co to manage its response to the hack, PR Week said.
Equifax’s share price has fallen by more than one-third since the company disclosed the hack on Sept. 7. Shares shed 3.8 percent on Friday to close at US$92.98.
US Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has built a reputation as a fierce consumer champion, on Friday launched a new round of attacks on Equifax by introducing a bill along with 11 other senators to allow consumers to freeze their credit for free.
A credit freeze prevents thieves from applying for a loan using another person’s information.
Warren also signaled in a letter to the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which she helped create in the wake of the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis, that it might require extra powers to ensure closer federal oversight of credit reporting agencies.
Warren also wrote letters to Equifax and rival credit monitoring agencies TransUnion LLC and Experian PLC, federal regulators and the US Government Accountability Office to see if new federal legislation was needed to protect consumers.
Equifax, which disclosed the breach more than a month after it learned of it on July 29, said at the time that thieves could have stolen the personal information of 143 million US citizens in one of the largest hacks ever.
The problem is not restricted to the US.
Equifax on Friday said that data on up to 400,000 Britons was stolen in the hack, because it was stored in the US. The data included names, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers, but not street addresses or financial data, Equifax said.
Canada’s privacy commissioner on Friday said that it has launched an investigation into the data breach. Equifax is still working to determine the number of Canadians affected, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada said in a statement.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS