Thune Statement on Equifax Data Breach Announcement
“Equifax needs to put consumers first and shouldn’t be trying to clean up its mess in a piecemeal fashion.”
March 1, 2018
WASHINGTON–- U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which summoned the current and previous CEOs of Equifax to testify at a hearing on the company’s 2017 data breach affecting an estimated 145 million individuals, issued the following statement that Equifax has identified an additional 2.4 million U.S. victims.
“While I credit Equifax for continuing to examine the scope of its massive data breach that lost sensitive personal and financial information, the company should have acted sooner to mitigate the impact on these additional affected consumers. The company knew the incident affected nearly the entire population of credit-active consumers in the United States and had every reason to believe this number could grow. Equifax needs to put consumers first and shouldn’t be trying to clean up its mess in a piecemeal fashion. Our committee will be reaching out to Equifax to get more information about this development and to express our ongoing concern about their response.”
“While I credit Equifax for continuing to examine the scope of its massive data breach that lost sensitive personal and financial information, the company should have acted sooner to mitigate the impact on these additional affected consumers. The company knew the incident affected nearly the entire population of credit-active consumers in the United States and had every reason to believe this number could grow. Equifax needs to put consumers first and shouldn’t be trying to clean up its mess in a piecemeal fashion. Our committee will be reaching out to Equifax to get more information about this development and to express our ongoing concern about their response.”
