Equifax CEO ‘Retires’ Amid Data Hacking Mess

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Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) CEO Richard Smith is retiring during the company’s current data hacking mess.

Equifax CEO Retires Amid Data Hacking Mess

The Equifax CEO’s retirement will also have him leaving behind the role Chairman of the Board. The Board of Directors at Equifax have chosen Mark Feidler to serve in the role of non-executive Chairman of the Board.

EFX says that Paulino do Rego Barros, Jr. will be serving as its interim Equifax CEO until it can find a replacement for Smith. It will be considering candidates both inside and outside the company while searching for a permanent replacement for Richard Smith.

Despite retiring, the former Equifax CEO will still be staying with the company. He has agreed to serve as a unpaid advisor to ensure a smooth transition to the next CEO.

“The cybersecurity incident has affected millions of consumers, and I have been completely dedicated to making this right,” the former Equifax CEO said in a statement. “At this critical juncture, I believe it is in the best interests of the company to have new leadership to move the company forward.”

The saga of the Equifax data hack started earlier this month when it revealed that the private information of 143 million people had been stolen. This included names, addresses, Social Security Numbers and more.

Shortly after the data breach was revealed, DoNotPay set up a chatbot that could automatically sue Equifax. Some people have even been considering freezing their credit and setting up fraud alerts to protect them.

EFX was then called out on its poor security website for the data breach by a software engineer. This person created a fake version of the website to show how easy it is for hackers to mimic the original and steal information. It even fooled Equifax, which linked to the website in a few Tweets.

EFX stock is down 1% as of Tuesday morning and is down 12% year-to-date.

As of this writing, William White did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2017/09/equifax-ceo-richard-smith-efx/.

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