The Senate has some questions for Equifax over its massive data breach

The committee's letter is the latest fallout from the hack.
 By 
Patrick Kulp
 on 
The Senate has some questions for Equifax over its massive data breach
Credit: AP/REX/Shutterstock

The Senate Finance Committee is demanding answers from Equifax in the latest fallout from a massive cyberattack that compromised personal data belonging to 143 million Americans.

The senators want to know who inside the credit reporting agency was aware of the hack and at what point they learned of it, including the three Equifax execs who dumped significant portions of the company's stock in the weeks between the discovery of the breach and its revelation to the public.

That request was one of many made in a long list of questions submitted to the company within a letter from Senate Finance Committee Chair Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican and ranking member Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat. The committee is also interested in whether the stolen data included any records associated with the Internal Revenue Service, Medicaid or Medicare, or other federal programs.

"If the names, social security numbers, birth dates, and other information of 143 million Americans are now in the hands of cybercriminals, this breach will cause irreparable harm to programs within this committees jurisdiction," the letter says.

The letter gives Equifax until near the end of the month to provide the information.

An Equifax spokesperson claimed in a statement last week that the three execs who sold the stock had no knowledge of the breach at the time. Should it be determined otherwise, they would likely face insider trading charges.

The letter is the latest in a series of legal and regulatory repercussions to hit the company since last Thursday's revelation. It's also been slammed with a class-action lawsuit, a Securities and Exchange Commission probe, and scheduled congressional hearings, among other consequences.

Topics Cybersecurity

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Patrick Kulp

Patrick Kulp is a Business Reporter at Mashable. Patrick covers digital advertising, online retail and the future of work. A graduate of UC Santa Barbara with a degree in political science and economics, he previously worked at the Pacific Coast Business Times.

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