Data on 143 million consumers in the U. S. was compromised in a series of cyberbreach.
Shares of Equifax shed more than 13% of their value in Friday trading, one day after the credit reporting company revealed that personal data on nearly half of all U. S. consumers potentially had been compromised.
The Atlanta-based company said Thursday that about 143 million U. S. consumers could be affected by a cybersecurity attack carried out by suspected criminal hackers. That’s about 44% of the U. S population.
Equifax shares closed down $19.49 or nearly 13.7% at $123.23.
Raj Joshi, a Moody’s vice president and senior analyst, in a Friday note termed the cyberattack a negative credit factor for Equifax „because it will impede the company’s solid earnings growth over the next three to four quarters and hurt its reputation as a custodian of consumer data for over 200 million consumers.“
However, Moody’s maintained Equifax’s Baa1 senior unsecured rating and stable outlook „because we expect the impact of the security breach will only modestly erode“ the company’s „solid credit metrics and liquidity, “ wrote Joshi.
The hacking attacks occurred from mid-May through July 2017 and primarily involved names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some cases, driver’s license numbers. Equifax said it first detected the cyberbreach on July 29.
The hackers gained access to credit card numbers for roughly 209,000 consumers, plus certain dispute documents with personal identifying information for approximately 182,000 consumers.
While it took Equifax more than a month to reveal the attack, three of its top executives, including the chief financial officer, sold shares after the company first learned of the breach, its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show.
Two days after Equifax learned of the attack, CFO John Gamble sold shares with a market value of nearly $946,400, while Joseph Loughran, president of Equifax’s U. S. Information Solutions, exercised options to sell nearly $584,100.
Rodolfo Ploder, president of business unit Workforce Solutions, sold shares valued at nearly $250,500 on Aug. 2, the filings show. The three executives continued to hold tens of thousands of Equifax shares after the transactions.
Equifax said the officials „had no knowledge that an intrusion had occurred“ at the time they sold their shares.
Atlanta-based Equifax is one of the nation’s largest credit-reporting companies, along with Experian and TransUnion. Equifax says it analyzes data on more than 820 million consumers and more than 91 million businesses worldwide.
The company established a dedicated website, www.equifaxsecurity2017.com, to help consumers determine whether their personal information may have been accessed and sign up for credit file monitoring and identity theft protection.
„Given the important role credit scores play in the lives and financial futures of hardworking Americans, Congress must diligently examine the way our credit reporting agencies are operating and impose additional statutory and regulatory reforms to protect the integrity of the country’s credit reporting system, “ Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) , ranking member of the House Committee on Financial Services, said in a statement.
