Equifax to pay out as much as $700 million after data breach. CEO, CSO and CIO Depart.
Equifax is set to pay out as much as $700 million in a settlement after millions of people’s data — including in Canada — was breached in 2017.
Equifax was hit by a major hack in 2017 that exposed the information of as many as 143 million Americans and 8,000 Canadians.
The company said at the time that criminals had penetrated the data by exploiting an application between mid-May and July that year.
It later turned out that hackers exploited a software flaw that developers hadn’t patched, the Journal noted.
Hackers also managed to scan the company’s network for months using a scanning tool that wasn’t working properly.
The breach saw information such as people’s birthdays, driver’s licence and Social Security numbers exposed.
Equifax CEO Richard Smith retired after news of the cyberattack emerged.
“At this critical juncture, I believe it is in the best interests of the company to have new leadership to move the company forward,” he said at the time.
His departure followed those of Equifax’s chief security officer and chief information officer.