Equifax execs sold off nearly $2 million in stock before massive data breach was made public

Three Equifax execs sold off around $1.8 million of their company's stock in the days after the company had discovered a massive data breach but had not yet made it public, according to regulatory fillings first reported by Bloomberg.

The credit reporting agency said Thursday that personal information belonging to 143 million Americans was compromised in a cyberattack it identified on July 29. Just three days after that date, chief financial officer John Gamble, president of U.S. information solutions Joseph Loughran, and president of workforce solutions Rodolfo Ploder unloaded stock worth around $946,000, $584,000, and $250,000 respectively.

At the time those transactions were made, Equifax tweeted that its site was undergoing maintenance.

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The records indicate the trades weren't made as part of a pre-arranged plan.

An Equifax spokesperson claimed the execs weren't aware of the breach at the time.

"The three executives who sold a small percentage of their Equifax shares on Tuesday, Aug. 1, and Wednesday, August 2, had no knowledge that an intrusion had occurred at the time they sold their shares," the spokesperson said in a statement.

Equifax's shares were down around 13 percent in after-hours trading as of Thursday evening.

The company said the breach occurred over the course of several weeks between mid-May and its discovery at the end of July. Upon the discovery, Equifax said it immediately shut down the hack and contracted a "leading, independent cybersecurity firm" to determine the scope of the damage. It's also working with law enforcement, and the investigation is ongoing, according to the announcement.