Saturday, 29 July: Equifax shuts down a security breach of 143 million people’s SSNs, DOBs, addresses, etc. that had been ongoing since May.
Tuesday, 1 August: Equifax Chief Financial Officer and President of Information Solutions both dispose of a total of US$1.5M of stock options in unscheduled sales
Wednesday, 2 August: Equifax President of Workforce Solutions disposes of a quarter-million bucks of shares in an unscheduled sale
Thursday, 7 September: After biding its time – perhaps waiting until summer was over and all the staff was back? – Equifax announces security breach 41 days after they shut it down. 41 days seems like an awfully long time to me, but I’m no expert on security. Or securities.
Later on Thursday: Equifax insists – don’t you love when that word is used in news stories instead of “said”? – the three officers knew nothing about the security breach before their stock sales.
Yes, that’s right, the President of Information Solutions – sounds like the top IT guy to me – knew nothing, nothing of what may be the largest security breach in US consumer history 72 hours after it was shut down. By his own department. Mebbe in the same Atlanta building as him, I dunno…but jeez, shockingly poor communication must abound in that place. Or his competence is on a par with Jen Barber. In either case: Tsk.
Results of Finley Quality Used Car Test: Would not buy one from any of those three guys. Especially the one on the left.
Edited to add this notice that just appeared on my Credit Union’s login page:
Wait, I know, I know! Is the answer ‘Sell a bunch of stock before anyone gets wind of this’? Too late, you say? Pah. Skunked again.
When there are two conflicting versions of a story, the wise course is to believe the one in which people appear at their worst.
H. Allen Smith
