Equifax

As Equifax sheds its top execs, more experts are casting attention on the business practice of charging consumers for monitoring their personal data at bureaus that otherwise give them little control over their financial identities.

Equifax observed an increasingly well-worn ritual of scandal-ridden firms by jettisoning CEO Richard Smith: apologize, promise to do better in the future, and sacrifice your top executive in the hopes it will ward off action by Congress and regulators.

Inevitably, Equifax’s CEO Richard Smith has left his post. For the credit bureau's sake, let's hope it has a long-term plan that's better than promoting from within.

The accounting firm says only a "very few" clients were affected by the cyberattack; former CEO Mike Cagney's wife, the lender's chief tech officer, is leaving.

The auditing and consulting firm said Monday that it’s currently informing the clients affected and has notified governmental authorities after it became aware of the incident.

Ironically, the credit bureau’s rise was built on promise to safeguard customers’ most sensitive information; bank to build global ops center in Warsaw.

A year ago, then-Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf testified before two committees. It went so poorly Stumpf later resigned, and the bank is still struggling to repair the damage. Here's how Equifax CEO Richard Smith can avoid the same fate.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is broadening her probe into the data breach to look at whether the company should have disclosed the breach sooner and if it plans to claw back compensation.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council meets Friday to discuss removing the label from the now shrunken insurer; Senate Banking Committee to hear Richard Smith on October 4.

Democrats have strived to paint recent scandals at Wells Fargo and Equifax as prime examples of why a regulatory rule banning mandatory arbitration agreements should be upheld, but Republicans are not wavering in their campaign to overturn it.

Summit Credit Union in Madison, Wis., has filed what's believed to be the first lawsuit by a financial institution in connection with the massive data breach.

The hearings before the Senate Banking Committee have high stakes for both companies, as lawmakers are expected to ask the CEOs whether they should be fired.

Data breaches and payment hacks require not only tech measures, but crisis management. Had Equifax gotten out in front of the story, particularly during the slow news period of August, it would have earned kudos and perhaps mitigated some of the public scrutiny.

Historically, the industry has placed much greater emphasis on preventing fraud at the point of transaction without doing enough to stop fraudulent account openings, writes Melissa Townsley, co-founder and CEO of GIACT systems.

Consumers and merchants in a digital ecosystem are changing the way people interact with each other and machines, changing payments and requiring an updated approach to security, according to Mastercard.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Wells Fargo’s treatment of customers was “egregious and unacceptable," hinting that more regulatory action was likely.

Equifax's data breach may be the most serious, given that it covered 143 million consumers and involved reams of confidential information, but it wasn't the largest. Following are the biggest to date.

While the payments industry may believe a "breach fatigue" has set in, it may have been the expectation of a cowed and apathetic public that partly led to Equifax’s maligned response after its data breach was finally made public.

An internal CFPB memo says it was considering a $10 billion fine before settling on $100 million; state suit against credit bureau is likely to be the first of many.

Data breaches and payment hacks require not only tech measures, but crisis management. Had Equifax gotten out in front of the story, particularly during the slow news period of August, it would have earned kudos and perhaps mitigated some of the public scrutiny, writes David E. Johnson, CEO of Strategic Vision.