In the wake of several major hacks, reported and otherwise, Equifax CEO Richard Smith has resigned from his post as the credit bureau’s chief executive officer. Bloomberg broke the news of Smith’s departure from the battered company early Tuesday morning, noting that he would be “joining other senior managers who left the credit-reporting company amid an uproar over the theft of private data on 143 million Americans.” Immediately following Smith’s so-called “retirement,” Equifax veteran and former Asia Pacific president Paulino do Rego Barros Jr. will take his place as CEO.
“The board remains deeply concerned about and totally focused on the cybersecurity incident,” said Mark Feidler, company board member and newly appointed non-executive chairman, in a statement. “We are working intensely to support consumers and make the necessary changes to minimize the risk that something like this happens again.”
Aside from the initial hack and a subsequent, previously unreported hack, Equifax has run into trouble on various fronts. A previous story indicated several top executives with the company sold $2 million in stock just before the hack was made public in early September. If that weren’t enough, their response to the theft of 143 million Americans’ personal information and financial data met with plenty of criticism — especially since the company’s Twitter account sent frantic customers to a fake phishing site for weeks after the fact.
(Via Bloomberg)