Data breaches

Equifax mismanaged its recovery by asking for personal information to determine if a user was affected and then issuing a predictable PIN code to those who requested a credit lock, moves that diluted confidence in the company, writes Timothy Crosby, senior security consultant for Spohn Security Solutions.

The week of Oct. 2 is shaping up to be a significant one for the financial services industry on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers grill the top executives of Equifax and Wells Fargo, as well as the top regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

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

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.