Data and information management

Readers comment on the ripple effects of the Equifax breach, who benefits from the CFPB's final arbitration rule, gender-related issues in financial services, and more.

Diminished returns from basic card breaches will turn crooks' attention to much larger and more dangerous attacks on entire payment systems, writes John Christly, global chief information security officer for Netsurion.

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.

Not only will banks be on the hook for counterfeit loans to identity thieves, but they will likely lose loan volume, and ultimately revenue, from changes in consumer behavior.

Yes, the credit bureau goofed badly on data security, and it proved to be worse at crisis management. But other companies have been just as sloppy with cyber defenses, and business and government leaders should have tackled these problems long before now.

The Sonic breach coupled with the tsunami of recent breaches might just be the game changers that lead U.S. federal authorities to better protect the data collection, processing and storage of customer data, writes Robert W. Capps, vice president of business development for NuData Security.

Equifax Inc. will debut a new service that will permanently give consumers the ability to lock and unlock their credit for free.

Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., plans to reintroduce legislation requiring the IRS to fast-track income verification, which proponents say could reduce the financial industry's dependence on credit bureaus.

Equifax will debut a new service that will permanently give consumers the ability to lock and unlock their credit for free.

Regulators disagree whether proposed changes to capital requirements would ease burden on community banks; JPMorgan on hook if jury award not overturned.

Amid a series of breaches, banks and payment services companies would be far better served by building solutions and programs that work toward instilling consumer confidence, instead of creating situations that continually erode trust, writes Madeline Aufseeser, CEO of Tender Armor.

Analysts at this year's American Credit Union Mortgage Association conference said CUs would be better served by collaborating on cybersecurity solutions than waiting on Congress to pass reg reform.

The identity theft threat created by the Equifax hack and the growth of online lending have given software makers a platform to pitch products that rely on selfies, scans of driver’s licenses and other nontraditional ID methods.

A panel of experts at this year's ACUMA conference says credit unions must find ways to collaborate while still remaining innovative.

The embattled Smith may lose severance benefits, depending on firm’s probe into data breach; Clayton grilled about why the agency took so long to act after Edgar hack.

There is a greater likelihood of an individual clicking on a piece of malware via a mobile device than a laptop, and this, in turn, provides issues for the amount of single sign on applications, writes Ryan Wilk, vice president of customer success at NuData Security.

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.

Richard Smith has resigned from the embattled Atlanta credit reporting company and will be replaced by Paulino do Rego Barros Jr., a seven-year company veteran. Board member Mark Feidler, a former telecom executive, was named nonexecutive chairman.