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.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
RSS