Two Equifax executives will retire following massive data breach

Equifax's chief information officer and chief security officer are retiring, effective immediately. Photo / AP

A week after Equifax disclosed that it suffered a massive data breach that may have compromised sensitive information belonging to 143 million people, the credit reporting agency's chief information officer, David Webb, and chief security officer, Susan Mauldin, are retiring, effective immediately, the company said in a statement Friday evening.

The sudden departures come as Equifax has been the target of intense criticism over the lapses in security that led to the hack and the way the company has handled the aftermath.

Richard Smith, Equifax's chief executive, apologised for the breach in an op-ed published by USA Today earlier this week. "This is the most humbling moment in our 118-year history," he said. But his promises to make changes at the company were not enough for many alarmed lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

At least two congressional hearings on the Equifax breach have been announced.

The first scheduled panel will take place on Oct. 3, when Smith is expected to testify.

A bipartisan group of 36 senators have asked the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate reports Equifax executives sold stock after learning about the breach but before it was made public.

And the US Federal Trade Commission took the unusual step of announcing that it is conducting a probe into the Equifax breach.

A major frustration for consumers who've sought to protect themselves from the Equifax data breach has been having to pay for freezing and unfreezing their credit, as a precaution against fraud. On Friday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and a dozen other Democrats introduced a bill that would ban credit reporting bureaus such as Equifax, Experian and TransUnion from charging consumers for the service.

Equifax said in its statement that the company would offer free security freezes through Nov. 21. But that is unlikely to satisfy the demands of some officials.

US Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer said on Thursday that the company's chief executive and board of directors should step down unless they take five steps to correct their mishandling: notify affected consumers; provide free credit monitoring to them for at least 10 years, offer to freeze their credit for up to 10 years; remove forced arbitration clauses from their terms of use; and comply with fines or new standards that come out of investigations.

"It's only right that the CEO and board step down if they can't reach this modicum of corporate decency by next week," he said.