Equifax Failure

Introduction The credit-reporting bureau Equifax disclosed one the largest data breach in modern history, reporting that private information and social security numbers 143 million consumers. Initially the breach happened in May through July and was not discovered until July 29, no evidence of unauthorized access to databases (John). Analyzing key issues what went wrong with the leader, what went wrong on the end of the security part of the I.T. department, and highlighting some ways the consumers can be proactive in protecting their private information.

Highlights of the Issues The reason for the Equifax data breach is failure on the I.T department to regularly update web application by Apache Struts. After an intensive investigation

In highlighting the disarray Richard Smith became CEO in 2005 his findings were underwhelming and describing a “culture of tenure” and “average talent”, but saw the potential in Equifax (Riley). Also, a lack of security precaution as a former executive wrote on LinkedIn that "it bothered me how much access just about any employee had to the personally identifiable attributes. I would see printed credit files sitting near shredders, and I would hear people speaking about specific cases, speaking aloud consumer’s personally identifiable information." Former Chief Information Security Officer Susan Mauldin has a bachelor’s and master’s in music composition, from the University of Georgia. Also, highlighting a lack of potential background and training, while going through scrubbing information like her education not being shown a later date (fig.1). All this is potentially done to lessen the damage of on the credibility of Equifax, but does not look good when looking from the outside. After becoming CEO, he immediately hired Tony Spinelli a well-known security expert but leave his position along with many rank members (Riley). Another key factor leading up to data breach of 2017 due to lack of seasoned veteran in the I.T.