Equifax CEO 'retires' after massive data breach

Equifax's CEO is stepping down weeks after a massive data breach at the credit-reporting company was revealed to have leaked sensitive information about more than 140 million people.

Richard Smith, who has been chief executive of the company since 2005, will "retire." The wording allows Smith to ostensibly leave on his own accord, but there was little doubt that the ongoing disaster of the Equifax hack would eventually cost him his job.

Equifax is currently the subject of a variety of investigations, including by the Federal Trade Commission. There's also plenty of lawsuits, including a $70 billion class-action suit in the works.

Smith is far from being out of the woods. He is scheduled to testify at a U.S. Senate finance committee hearing about the breach, and he's the third high-level Equifax executive to "retire" since the incident. The company's top security and information executives stepped down earlier in September.

Equifax is still reeling from the breach and its bungled response to the situation. For weeks, the company directed worried customers to a fake phishing site that had been set up. It was also discovered that it used weak internal passwords including "admin," for parts of its internal portal.

Its executives haven't fared much better. Three of the company's leaders were found to have sold chunks of stock after the company learned of the hack, moves that are now being investigated by the Department of Justice.

The data breach leaked information about 143 million people and included Social Security numbers, which can be used to open fake accounts, file for tax refunds, and take out credit cards. The information of more than 200,000 credit cards was also leaked.